


No Stranger To The Wind

by CalamityCain



Category: Jesus Christ Superstar - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Assault, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Developing Relationship, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Injury, Lack of Communication, M/M, Murder, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sexual Abuse, Sickfic, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27956567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityCain/pseuds/CalamityCain
Summary: A building fated for destruction. Love in the midst of changing seasons. An uncertain future haunted by ghosts of the past.
Relationships: Jesus Christ/Judas Iscariot
Comments: 42
Kudos: 9





	1. All I’ve ever known

**Author's Note:**

> witness me, a person who has only ever occupied tropical places, attempting to write seasonal weather. I blame this disaster on both Rent and Hadestown. (Also I had the hardest time trying to classify and tag this thing even though it's hardly groundbreaking, just more of my emotional support disaster couple in yet another AU. More tags will be added later, probably)

The barricades went up in spring: improvised structures made of cheap plywood and aluminium rails and anything the besieged residents could spare – chairs, broken tables, even a chaise sofa. It was an impressive edifice in its hodgepodge glory, if ultimately futile. The few remaining notices that had not been torn down in defiance when they first went up were tattered at the edges, but their faded words still spelt clearly the fate of the doomed Jerusalem Square and its inhabitants. By the dawn of next year, the bulldozers and strip-out crews would arrive. And those who had nowhere to go would find themselves with nothing to lose – as is so often said of those who have nothing.

Judas was among the lucky ones. Loathe as he was to leave these aging red-brick apartments and its stone pavements cracked from the roots of gnarled trees that cast their welcome shade on blistering summer days, he knew there was no point in fighting the inevitable. He had already made the downpayment for a decent townhouse lot in a nice if slightly pricier neighbourhood some twenty minutes’ drive away. A neighbourhood that, with any luck, would not suffer further gentrification; at least not the same brand that was coming for the beloved ‘Salem Square.

As he labelled the few boxes he had managed to pack, he heard the crowd swell in ranks and noise on the streets below. The distraction proved too great a temptation. Once more he found himself drawn to the balcony outside his door, casting his gaze about for the attractive man with the tousled hair and magnetic dark eyes who inevitably appeared at the forefront of the crowd. Sometimes he was armed with a megaphone, and other times he let others take the lead; but always he was there, heartening and rallying the rioters while also keeping the peace. He was often accompanied by a woman named Mary, a neighbour Judas usually spoke to only in passing when their paths happened to meet. The longest conversation they had had was when she offered her lighter as he fumbled for his with a cigarette between his teeth.

She had invited him to be part of the committee organizing a movement to save Jerusalem Square. He had politely refused, in a manner that suggested she not bother asking again.

“You live here too, you know,” had been her response. “Not for much longer” had been his. She stiffened and squared her shoulders indignantly, likely regretting having loaned him the use of her lighter. “Maybe someday you’ll learn to care for someone other than yourself.” Before he could shoot back a scathing reply, she was already marching off in the other direction.

Despite parting on less than amicable terms, there was little actual dislike between them. Mary could come across as a little self-righteous at times, but she was also irrepressibly sincere: quick to anger, quick to forgive, and ready to give of herself at the drop of a hat. She had that in common with the man that Judas kept watching from afar, and had yet to talk to. Once or twice he mustered the courage to approach him, only to find that Mary already had the lion’s share of his attention, their conversations passionate and animated. For all their constant proximity, they appeared to be nothing more than friends. Judas knew he should make his move before that nothing became something. And yet to his annoyance, the opportunities were few and far between. The man was constantly surrounded by people. They looked up to him; they trusted that he would lead them to victory. Judas did not envy his place. To be a hero was to carry the hopes and dreams of others on your shoulders, with barely any room left for your own.

Still, he played the role tirelessly. He was there in the thick of things now, as he ever was. Not above them but one of them. It was a sultry day, the sun of a cloudless sky beating down on the pavements, the shade of the old twisting trees only partially filtering out the heat. Judas would rather stay in the shade of his apartment and continue sorting out the stuff that needed packing, as he knew he should. Instead he found himself down on the pavement, hovering at the edge of the crowd, waiting for the moment where their eyes would meet.

Judas was not the type to believe in things like destiny. But when those dark eyes found his – as they always did – they could have made him believe that the sun revolved around the earth. Much like how his world, in the span of those few seconds, revolved around this man who glowed golden in the sun. Incandescent, warm and inviting, yet unreachable.

 _Jesus._ His name was Jesus. Judas longed for the day he could finally say it, for the name to spill from the edge of his lips when they were finally face to face, no crowd between them.

His unspoken wish came true on the night of a full moon, at the end of a workday and his walk home from the nearest train stop. He had lingered for a moment to enjoy the quiet of the lamplit street and was midway through a cigarette when a familiar figure approached. Judas didn’t recognise him at first, half-cloaked as he was in shadow, and wearing a rather nicer coat than Judas would expect after perpetually seeing him in various threadbare-looking shirts. But upon closer look, he saw that the coat was hardly new, mended and patched in places. Its presence made him realise how cold it was getting. He pulled down the edges of the long sleeves he had pushed up earlier, feeling suddenly self-conscious as Jesus approached with a tentative smile. The weather was all kinds of crazy lately: blazing hot in the day followed by ice in the damp at night. He made a remark on this, and regretted immediately. _Conversations about the weather – how original._

To his quiet relief, Jesus heartily agreed, commenting on how glad he was for his only good jacket.

“It’s a nice garment,” Judas replied sincerely. “Looks like good wool, too.”

He held out his pack of Dunhills; Jesus declined. “I never got your name,” he said as he stuck out his hand belatedly. “I’m –”

“I know who you are.” He took the hand, wondering if he had only imagined the tingle running through his fingers, up his arm. “I’m Judas.”

Jesus repeated it as if enjoying its shape around his tongue. How marvellous it was, thought Judas, to hear his own name suddenly take on profound new life simply by passing through his breath, his lips. After a moment of silence, during which Judas snuck a sidelong glance at how soft his hair looked in the silver light, Jesus asked: “Do you have somewhere to go? You know, if things don’t…if we don’t manage to…”

“Save ‘Salem Square? As the headline on your posters go?”

He smiled. “They’re not mine. Mostly not mine. A friend helped design and print them.”

“I see.”

“So. You have a place?”

Judas nodded. “I got lucky, I guess. A good-sized townhouse, decent location. Affordable.” He cursed his words for sounding so banal, and made up for it by redirecting the question. “What about you? For all your passionate refrains about standing our ground, you must have a backup plan.”

Jesus’ smile wavered slightly, his steady gaze flickering as it followed a stray flyer being blown along the sidewalk by a faint breeze. “This place is all I have,” he said softly. Judas wondered if he was ashamed, until he saw the small smile tugging at the corner of Jesus’ mouth. “This is all I’ve ever known.” He followed Jesus’ eyes as they swept upward. “That corner lot on the fourth floor…that’s where I am. The very same where I lived with my mother.”

“Where is she now?”

“Somewhere better, I hope. She would have hated to see this place torn down.” Wistfulness crept into his voice. “She worried about me right to her last days.”

Judas didn’t know what to say to that. “She shouldn’t have,” he muttered at last. With more conviction, he added: “She should be proud. You’re a good person. Better than someone like me, anyway.”

“She _was_ proud. But I think she’d have liked me to be more like you. Someone with a plan.”

His sidelong glance, sliding from Judas’ face to the ground and back, was oddly shy. Judas wondered if he was being allowed a glimpse into the person he was beneath the fire of his charisma. A quiet, solitary side that perhaps was all the lonelier for the crowd around him.

“Plans can change, fall apart,” he said. “People like you – people who stand for something – are harder to break.”

He fiddled with the edge of his shirt. “I believe that too. But some days I’m not so sure.” He pulled his coat tighter around him as the faint wind grew stronger. Judas drew the last of the heat from his cigarette before letting it drop from his fingers.

“Will I see you again?” Jesus asked.

“Hard not to. I’ll be here till…” His words died out as he realised the terrible impermanence of things. He wished they could be here for an hour more, a day and night, an eternity. Trapped within time and the silver light of the full moon.

“Till the end of the year, at least?” The undisguised hope in Jesus’ voice made his heart lighten.

“At least. Maybe longer. Who knows?”

He nodded. “I’m glad. You have a future, anyway.” His brow darkened. “Some people are not so lucky. That’s why we can’t stop. It’s not over until…well. Until it is.”

“And what happens then?”

When Jesus failed to answer, his unwavering conviction failing him for once, Judas wanted – in a fit of rashness – to say _“Come with me.”_ It was stupid, of course. This was not a movie, and they were not about to fall in love within minutes of their first proper conversation.

And so he said instead, rather lamely: “I’ll see you around.” He hoped his guarded face said what his words did not. Jesus must have seen something in the flicker of his eyes, a twitch of his mouth, and answered with a smile that made the moon shine even brighter. They moved toward each other unconsciously, their fingers nearly brushing, close enough for Judas to feel the warmth of his breath. And then they were parting again, swept apart by the wind and the fickle forces of fate that Judas had spent his lifetime not believing in.

He went to bed that night both dissatisfied and restlessly happy. As he finally slid into slumber, Jesus’ voice was in his ears, whispering his name again and again like a prayer, or a promise.


	2. The gathering storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i like my sickfics as much as the next diehard shipper, what can i say. you didn't come here for groundbreaking shit let's be honest

Jesus’ other regular companion was a short, rambunctious, and (in Judas’ opinion anyway) slightly obnoxious personage who had twice been fined for plastering over the eviction notices with incendiary anti-authority statements. Simon was his name: Simon the troublemaker, the fire-starter. Despite his habit of keeping largely to himself, Judas found it hard to avoid news of his latest shenanigans from the passing commentary of nosy neighbours and committee members. Once or twice he lingered within earshot long enough to pick up the details of the man’s newest exploit, and found himself rolling his eyes or smiling inwardly in amusement; sometimes both.

Their first conversation occurred when Simon was lugging a large crate of Bombay Sapphire on a trolley, the blue-tinted bottles clinking in the box that was blocking most of the corridor. “Need help with that?” Judas offered, not wanting to be stuck there for the next ten minutes.

“If you’d be so kind.” Simon’s grin was the wide, infectious kind that made his eyes twinkle. “Just need to get it into the lift. You’re Judas, right?”

Judas nodded as he helped manoeuvre the too-small trolley with its oversized cargo into the aging elevator. Both Simon and the crate just neatly fit into the narrow space. “Thanks! Here, you should have one.”

Judas shook his head at the proffered bottle, but Simon insisted. “Please. On me. It’s a celebration.”

“Of what?”

“Haven’t you heard? We’re in the news!” Simon pushed his phone into Judas’ face. Displayed on the slightly cracked screen was a feature on the tireless campaigning for the preservation of Jerusalem Square, Jesus’ face clearly visible amid the cluster of protesters and their picket signs. Judas also spotted a woman who might be Mary, and an exuberant face two heads away from her that was almost definitely Simon’s.

“Congrats,” he said. “I really shouldn’t accept – I’ve not done more than sign a petition or two.”

Simon clapped his shoulder. “Never too late, my friend. Like Rocky Balboa said, it ain’t over till it’s over. And national media attention can only help.”

“Can’t disagree with that.” He raised the bottle. “Cheers.”

Simon returned the toast as the elevator doors closed on his grinning face.

Judas didn’t ask where he’d gotten his sizeable supply, knowing it had shady sources he couldn’t be bothered to know the details of. Not that Simon was in danger of being ratted out for hauling black-market liquor. He had become a bit of a people’s hero, almost as much as the man who had initiated the movement, for his acts of bravado. People who had little else to their name needed all the bravado they could muster in the face of the inevitable. Even when the police came for them – threatening arrest over staging a rally without a permit – they stood shoulder to shoulder as a wall of bodies, nonviolent but also impenetrable, a force to be reckoned with against the gathering storm.

But as the days grew darker and colder, the spirit of protest flagged noticeably as people were forced to direct their efforts elsewhere: namely, to staying alive amidst the rising costs of power and water. In a ruthless effort to ‘starve out’ residents and encourage them to move, the building owners had raised maintenance fees, resulting in a large number of residents struggling to keep the lights on. The simple pleasure of coming home to the glow of lit windows was fast fading. Only the more fortunate, Judas among them, continued paying for the luxury of a fully lit house after dark. The rest had to settle for the flicker of an old-fashioned kerosene lantern or small table lamps. These faint specks of light showed that ‘Salem Square still lived – if just barely.

The campaigners had withdrawn their efforts from the streets, but they were as tireless as ever. There was talk of Jesus and Mary trying to secure a generator for those who needed power for any emergency situations. Once Judas saw Mary trooping past various blocks offering blankets to anyone who needed help staying warm and were trying to save on heating. Her smile was tired but genuine as she passed him by and asked if he needed a blanket. He shook his head.

“Have you seen Simon lately?” he asked. Having once found the man irksome, he now missed hearing snatches of his voice echoing through the blocks.

Her face fell at the mention of her compatriot’s name. “He was arrested a week ago.”

“Shit. What for?”

“Several things. Defacing of public property, organizing unlicensed demonstrations…I can send you the full list if you want.” Mary smiled wryly.

“Sorry about that,” he said lamely, not knowing what else to offer.

“We guessed it would happen eventually.” She sighed. “He’ll be out in a month, though. If he behaves. Maybe things will change when he’s back.”

He nodded, not very hopefully. Like the skies above, ‘Salem Square seemed dimmer these days, Simon’s absence leaving a cheerless silence in its wake. As they went their separate ways down the corridor, he couldn’t help his thoughts drifting back to Jesus. Judas wondered with a twinge if he was one of the people whose only source of light and warmth was the faint flicker of a lamp.

They had last spoken very briefly while Jesus was on his way out, making tentative plans for a coffee date that had never happened. Judas thought of the way the man’s eyes had lingered on his as the bloom of colour in his cheeks mirrored the heat Judas felt rising in his own face, leaving him pleasantly warm for a good few minutes after.

He felt little warmth now as he made his way to the corner lot of the fourth level where Jesus lived. He knocked on the door, waited for a few beats, then knocked again while calling out Jesus’ name. There was no one home.

To distract himself, he decided to take a walk past the Square to the provision store that served most of the neighbourhood (and would likely be gone with the demolition of the residence, he thought with some dismay) and stock up on groceries. The wind was mild, but its chill was biting. He turned up his collar and picked up his pace to push some heat into his limbs. As his mind began to drift, his gaze absently following the dance of dead leaves along the well-worn pavement stones, the sounds of a scuffle – and of someone in distress – caught his attention. “Hurry up, let’s go!” said a stranger’s rough voice. There were two of them, their panting edged with desperation.

Judas started running towards the source of the noise, dread building in the pit of his belly. The voice of the person being attacked had sounded awfully familiar. By the time he got there, the two muggers were unidentifiable figures in the distance. His heart nearly stopped when he saw Jesus lying on the ground in a battered heap. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his half-open eyes unfocused from the shock of the assault.

“Shit. _Shit._ ” Judas crouched beside him, unsure of what to do. “Hang in there. I’ll call for help.”

Before he could speed dial an emergency number, Jesus’ ice-cold fingers curled around his. “Judas…?” He attempted to sit up as the dazed look slowly lifted from his face. Judas hooked an arm around his back. “Take it easy, for fuck’s sake.”

Jesus leaned gratefully into the warmth of his chest. Judas recalled the many times he had dreamt about being able to hold him close like this, and regretted the awful circumstances that had led to his wish being granted.

“Do you need a hospital?”

“No…it’s fine.”

“What did they do to you?”

“Took my wallet. And my coat.” He shuddered at the passing wind, protected only by a worn flannel shirt and jeans that were in need of patching. “I loved that coat.”

“At least you’re alive. Did you get a look at the thugs who robbed you?”

He shook his head and started to shiver uncontrollably, compelling Judas to pull off his own jacket and wrap it around him. “Come on.” He slowly lifted Jesus to his feet, watching for any signs of pain. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” The answer turned out to be overly optimistic when he staggered and collapsed into Judas’ arms after three steps. Judas lowered him onto a rusty bench that had seen better days. “Leave me here. I just need a…a few minutes.”

“You need medical attention, is what.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Like hell you will.”

“I don’t want to keep you.” His teeth clattered with every few words. “It’s getting colder. You’ll need your jacket back.”

“So should I take it back, and leave you to freeze and die?”

Jesus didn’t reply, all his energy channelled into fighting a bitter chill only he could feel. Judas noticed that his shivering hadn’t stopped, although thankfully the bleeding had. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.” He hoisted Jesus to his feet, noting the feverish warmth against his own body. By some miracle they made it to Judas’ door without either of them keeling over. Jesus collapsed gratefully onto his sofa, tension melting from his frame as the trembling subsided within seconds. “It’s good that you still have heating.”

“I try to leave it off when possible, but today has been a bastard.”

“It sure has.”

“I’m making coffee. You want some?”

He shook his head. “I’ll only be a while,” he murmured – rather deludedly, in Judas’ opinion, considering he looked incapable of moving anywhere further than the length of the sofa. Indeed, when he returned with a steaming mug, Jesus was slumped on the armrest with eyes closed, dead to the world. He looked not just sick, but worn down. Judas found himself aching with worry as he pulled off Jesus’ boots and tugged him into a more comfortable position. He was halfway through cleaning the wound on Jesus’ forehead and the dried blood around it when Mary’s words suddenly came back to him. _Maybe someday you’ll learn to care for someone other than yourself._

He shook his head. “I hope you’re happy now,” he said out loud as if she could hear him. Jesus mumbled something in his sleep, the soft lips parting invitingly for a moment. Judas wanted nothing more than to steal a kiss from them. If it was true that good things came to those who waited, someday it would be offered willingly, and he would take it without hesitation.

He missed his alarm for some reason, waking almost an hour late and cursing as he gulped down his coffee and considered skipping a shower. The day was certainly cold enough to warrant it. He bent over his sofa to check on Jesus; the man had not moved from his initial position, and Judas found his stillness worrying. The paleness of yesterday was replaced with a flush that matched the heat of his face and neck. When Judas shifted him to pull off the jacket and replace it with the more comfortable warmth of a blanket, he whined softly as if the slightest movement caused him pain.

“I’ll get you some aspirin, alright?” In response, he mumbled incoherently before lapsing back into his fevered slumber shortly after Judas threw the spare blanket over him.

“Goddamnit.” There was no way in hell he could leave Jesus alone in such a state. He made a phone call to the IT headquarters where he was among the head programmers who managed a database comprising over two thousand employees. In his youth, Judas had been part of a group of notorious hackers who infamously wormed their way into the accounts of a Forbes-listed multinational and squirrelled away a sizeable fortune each before having been forced to surrender most of it – in addition to spending nearly a year in prison. When he got out, he had been hired by a branch of the very same corporation he and his comrades had hacked into. They had figured it was safer to have someone like him on their side than anywhere else.

“Alicia. Bit of an emergency, I can’t make it today. Can you give me remote access to the intranet?”

“It’ll take a while. I’ll have to get clearance. What’s up?”

“Just need to make sure a friend doesn’t die on me.”

“Oh, damn. Good luck.” She went silent for a few seconds. “Alright, check your email in a bit for the link and password.”

“Thanks.”

As he was making his way through his peanut-buttered toast while rummaging through the drawers for some Tylenols, he heard Jesus struggling to get up and hastily went over to the sofa. “Stop being an idiot. Lie down.” With some delicate manoeuvring, he managed to get Jesus to swallow the meds along with half a glass of water. Fussing over someone was entirely new to him; he had been an only child with no siblings to care for, and the one or two people he had gone steady with – both for less than a year – had not required much taking care of, for which he had been thankful. But now he found himself getting jumpy with every twinge of pain flickering across Jesus’ face, as if the man’s life had become the centre of his own.

The soft lips his eyes kept being drawn to were trying to say something. Trying to form an apology for imposing. Even the effort of speaking seemed to hurt him; his throat was likely swollen or sore, judging from how small and hoarse his voice was.

“Will you shut up and go to sleep?”

The faintest amused smile appeared on his mouth at Judas’ brusqueness. With no strength to resist, he relented and fell still seconds later, the tightness fading from his peacefully sleeping face. As Judas was about to leave his side, he heard a faint buzzing and located the source after a bit of hunting. In their haste to get away, the muggers had fortunately forgotten Jesus’ phone, which was still wedged securely in one of his jeans’ pockets. Judas pulled it out and laid it on the table, glimpsing snatches of message previews on the lit screen.

Around an hour past noon, Jesus finally started showing signs of life, although his constant shivering that also sent pain shooting through his every joint made Judas wonder if he wasn’t better off unconscious. “If I’m to give you any more painkillers, you need to eat something,” he remarked.

“Mmm. It’s fine, then.”

“I’m having leftover lasagna for lunch, if you want some.”

“Thanks…but not right now. I don’t want to throw up on your couch.” He pulled himself into a semi-upright position, wincing at the sharp jolts even the simplest movement caused, and fumbled with his pockets. His eyes widened. “No. They didn’t – they can’t have –”

“Your phone’s on the coffee table."

A rush of relief filled his face as he sank back onto the pillows, exhausted by the brief few seconds of panic. “Did it ring earlier?”

“Nope. Just a bunch of messages, a few from Mary. But mostly from some guy named Andrew.”

His half-closed eyes flew open again. Judas didn’t miss their shadowed, anxious look as he pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “You wanna tell me about him?”

Jesus shook his head. But after a few seconds, he began to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andrew is a bogeyman Saffiaan made up when she needed a (very) bad guy for her Groupchat series, that I decided to steal for this different AU. All you need to know is that he's an incorrigible asshole in every universe.
> 
> ((Speaking of Saff's GC series, I also plucked the same career we gave Simon for this story, because why make new ideas when you can reuse existing ones))


	3. Songbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit more about Jesus' music background, but not the whole story (yet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sorry for more Hadestown references, as if the chapter titles weren't enough  
> (P.S. it's more thematic inspiration than direct parallels; so, no, Andrew is not a Hades figure because Hades is not an irredeemable asshole)

“He was the manager of our band. And the reason I left it.”

“You were in a band?” Now that he thought about it, Jesus had always looked vaguely familiar, even before Judas knew him as the great defender of Jerusalem Square. He must have seen his face on an album cover before, or perhaps lurking in the back of a music video.

“it was ages ago. We only lasted about four years. Five, but I left after the fourth.”

“Wait. Hang on.” Judas rose and went to the chest of drawers he had been procrastinating on emptying out and sorting. It was full of things he wanted to keep, and full of things he was thinking to leave behind. One of the drawers held the latter: a collection of dusty CDs and even an ancient Sony Discman. He came back holding a CD with three men and two women on the front cover, their faces splashed in pop-art neon. “Gethsemane. That’s the band, right?” Judas handed him the album. His eyes lit up.

“I haven’t seen this in so long.”

“That’s you, isn’t it? On the far left.” His hair was a little shorter, but had the same wavy tousled look.

Jesus nodded. “I was on bass. And backup vocals.”

“So that’s why I didn’t know your name then. Bassists never get enough credit.”

He smiled. “Did you see the other familiar face on the album?”

“The woman who looks like a hippie version of Mary?”

“It _is_ Mary. She played rhythm guitar, and sometimes the harmonica.”

“Huh.” He grabbed the CD to take a closer look. “So that’s how you became friends.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever consider moving out?”

“What, when we started making money? I don’t know. We were hardly rock stars. Just a band with a few good songs.” _We could have been more,_ his thoughtful expression said.

“And you and Mary…you’ve been here all this while?”

“Mary moved in here after she left Gethsemane.” Jesus leaned back and curled into the blanket. “Which was a few months after I did.”

“Because of this Andrew guy?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.” He looked hesitant to say more. It could simply be that he was reluctant to go on at length when exhaustion was already eating at him. “You can continue the saga later if you like,” said Judas.

Jesus made a sound of half-hearted assent, barely able to keep his eyes open. His head fell back as he allowed sleep to steal over him once more. Judas longed to give the CD a listen, to revisit the songs he had all but forgotten, now that their existence had taken on new meaning. But he no longer had a working player, and he didn’t have the right batteries for the Discman. Still, a quick online search turned up most of Gethsemane’s discography on YouTube. Jesus was being modest; they were, in Judas’ opinion at least, more than “just band with a few good songs.” Their sound was unique for the era the two albums had been released in: a marriage of Pink Floyd’s guitar work, Led Zeppelin’s expressive vocals, and the auditory stylings of Florence & The Machine.

He played every track on the list, listening for Jesus’ voice beneath the lead singer’s lusty vocals and the wail of psychedelic riffs. Two of the songs featured a whole stanza with his earnest melodic singing unmasked by other band members. Judas let the songs loop through his headphones as he worked until they were embedded into his brain. He didn’t realise he was humming one of the songs as he went through his fridge to see if anything in there could be turned into a quick, decent dinner. The sound of Jesus’ soft voice startled him.

“The chorus of ‘Songbird.’ It was one of Mary’s favourites.”

He rose to see the man standing at the kitchen entrance with the blanket pulled around him, swaying on his feet. “Here. Sit the fuck down before you keel over.” Judas shoved a chair in his direction. “What are you doing up?”

“I thought of…” He hesitated. “I wanted to ask if…if I could use your shower.”

“Sure, except I’d need to hold your hand while you’re in there. You can barely stand.”

He chuckled ruefully. “You’re probably right. It’s just that I’ve been wearing these clothes since yesterday morning.”

“I can lend you some stuff.”

“I’m sorry. I know I’ve troubled you enough…”

“Do you cook?”

“I…yes. I love to. I used to bake a lot, before I had to use the money for rent instead of ingredients.”

“You can make me something when you’re well, and we’ll call it even.”

His face lit up, and Judas’ heart skipped several beats. “Deal.”

A while later he emerged from the bedroom dressed in sweatpants and an oversized Bikini Kill t-shirt. The effort had clearly drained him, though at least he was in less pain than before. He pulled the blanket back around his shoulders and curled up on the same chair he had been sitting in, watching Judas peel potatoes. His presence sent pleasant warm tingles up Judas’ arms and neck. Had anyone else tried to watch his mediocre culinary efforts, he would have told them to bugger off.

He noticed that Jesus was softly humming the bars from where he had left off. “You were one of the songwriters, weren’t you?”

“I was. Few listeners realised it at the time, but ‘Songbird’ was kind of a jab at Andrew and the record company.”

“The part about vultures and canaries?”

“Kind of. Trained songbirds, disposable, canaries one moment and carrion the next – all that stuff. We were losing control of who we were, what we had set out to make. And that wasn’t even the worst part.” An involuntary shudder ran through him.

Judas wasn’t sure he wanted to know about those parts. “I hope it wasn’t a bad breakup,” he said at last. “No worse than ‘creative differences’ anyway.”

When he was met with silence, he looked up from his lumpy potatoes and saw that Jesus seemed to have shrunken in on himself, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Jesus nodded. “It was my fault,” he said in a whisper. “A moment of weakness. That was all it took.”

“Well, whatever it was, it’s history now. Don’t beat yourself up.” Having run out of words – comforting people was not his strong suit – he offered coffee instead. Jesus smiled gratefully as he accepted the hot fragrant brew, sighing as its warmth coursed through him.

Later, as Judas was fixing several bugs in the flawed administrative system the previous idiots in his job had been responsible for, he stole a glance at Jesus and saw a frown on his brow and the corners of his mouth tightening as he stared at something on his phone. “Is your asshole ex-manager bothering you?” he asked with an irrational rush of anger. He couldn’t believe that in the short amount of time had known Jesus, he felt ready to beat people up on his behalf.

“No. It’s nothing.”

“Didn’t look like nothing.”

“He’s just being a creep. As usual.” He feigned a nonchalant tone, but Judas sensed a faint note of anxiety.

“Block him.”

“What?”

“Block his number. He shouldn’t be allowed to bombard you with messages if you already kicked him out of your life years ago.”

Jesus bit his lower lip in a way that made him look both heartbreakingly vulnerable and irresistibly lovely. “It’s a bit too late for that.” A flash of guilt crossed his face. “I shouldn’t have started replying, but…”

“What did he say to you? Did he make a job offer or something?”

“He just. Offered some help, if I needed it. And I…well, it’s hard to turn such things down at the moment.”

“You’re out of a goddamn job because of him, and he has the nerve to turn around and play a hero now?”

“He didn’t put me out of a job. I left voluntarily.”

“You left because he was an asshole.”

“I did have work for a good while as a session musician. It’s just that…times are hard, lately.” He looked ashamed of himself, and Judas felt the urge to physically knock such feelings right out of him. The tired, defeated man huddled on his couch was a far cry from the charismatic people’s champion he had watched longingly from afar. And yet he loved Jesus no less for it.

 _Love? Don’t be stupid. You’ve gotten to know him for a full total of what, one and a half days?_ And yet he didn’t know what else to call the fiercely protective feeling that hummed through his every vein as he crossed the short distance between them to gently but firmly pluck the phone from Jesus’ hands. “You don’t owe him your attention. You don’t owe him _anything._ ”

Those dark eyes looked up at him as if his statement was some kind of revelation. Eyes that were full of warmth and wordless need. Without being fully conscious of it, Judas’ arm was sliding around him, and then he was leaning into Judas’ chest as if he had done so a hundred times before. As if their bodies were made to fit each other’s. When the soft, even breaths indicated Jesus had fallen asleep on his shoulder, Judas found he didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay forever this way with the man who filled him with emotions he hadn’t the faintest idea how to process, who made his heart feel like something freshly hatched and fragile and raw.

He got up some time past one in the morning to take a piss and decided to check on Jesus. The latter seemed to be fine from afar until Judas heard the litany of soft senseless muttering and turned on the light. To his alarm, Jesus was flushed and shivering uncontrollably, his skin searing hot to the touch. “The hell?? I thought you were getting better.” He managed to get Jesus to down some water, but no more than three quarters of a glass before a wave of nausea arrived. Jesus quivered as he fought the urge to throw up the small amount of food he had successfully consumed earlier. The battle left hm weakened and he slumped back into the pillows, a few dark strands of hair plastered to his forehead with the beginnings of a cold sweat.

Judas grabbed a handful of towels, dampened them with cold water and laid them on the fevered flesh in an attempt to lower its temperature. Jesus whimpered when the blanket was pulled from him. “Sorry, but if you get any hotter your brain might melt.” Judas pushed up the t-shirt to press a cold towel onto the skin beneath, ignoring the whine of protest. “Don’t move,” he said as he ran to grab some aspirin and more water. Jesus tried to refuse, petulant and child-like in his discomfort, but somehow – surprised at his own patience and persistence – Judas managed to get the pills past his lips and down his throat, followed by a mouthful of water that he thankfully did not regurgitate.

Only after he had managed to get Jesus feeling less like a furnace did he remove the damp cloths and pull the blanket back up. Jesus clung to it gratefully, falling into a fitful sleep after a few minutes. Judas was left standing over him, tired yet fully alert, and reluctant to leave him unattended. After sluggishly pacing the length of the small living area, Judas slid onto the sofa so that Jesus’ head was resting on his belly. It was a surprisingly comfortable position – and one he would never in a million years have enjoyed with someone else. The soft weight on his lap and stomach was at once thrilling and soothing, and before long he drifted off into a light slumber.

He was awakened some indeterminate length of time later by a short cry. Jesus’ eyes had flown open and he looked shaken. He blinked frantically until his gaze found Judas’ and his glazed eyes came back into focus. “You were dreaming,” Judas told him wearily. “Go back to sleep.”

He rested his arm on Jesus’ chest, the weight of which the latter seemed to find comforting. They both fell soundly asleep and did not wake until the light of the morning sun had fully infiltrated the living room. Judas woke with a start before remembering it was a Saturday. He looked down to see that Jesus had unconsciously nuzzled into the crook of his arm. The skin against his was still slightly warm, but the raging fever had passed. He rubbed small circles into the curve of Jesus’ neck, evoking a hum of pleasure. The hint of a smile teased the corner of those soft generous lips. Still caught in the lull of being just half-awake, he pressed himself deeper into the curve of Judas’ waist and lap before realising what he was doing. He stiffened slightly, eyes now fully open. “I’m sorry.”

Judas frowned. “Sorry for what?”

“For keeping you awake. And…well, for using you as a pillow.” He managed to raise himself to a sitting position, except he was now also sitting in Judas’ lap. And he didn’t seem too keen on moving.

Judas felt his hand sliding around the slender waist as he replied: “ _I’m_ not sorry.”

Jesus blinked at the statement, his cheeks warming a little, but not from the fever. “I’ll make it up to you someday.”

“Hmm. You can make it up to me right now.”

Judas wondered if perhaps the statement might be taken the wrong way. But when his hands tightened around Jesus’ waist and their lips brushed, there was no resistance. Their bodies were melting into one another, their first kiss tentative at first, before blossoming into something warm and full and joyously new. Judas felt as if he’d never kissed anyone before. Every breath he drew from those parted lips was a miracle, and despite the changing winds and darkening days, everything felt right with their arms around each other.


	4. When the chips are down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the angst and idiots being idiots. learn how to communicate, ffs

After some persuading, Jesus agreed it was best to give up his place and the growing struggle to keep it lit and heated. The likelihood that life in Jerusalem Square would go back to the way it used to be grew slimmer with each passing day. Sooner or later, they would all need to prepare for the undesired, unavoidable outcome.

It made Judas ache a little to step into the small, draughty apartment and think of Jesus trying to keep warm while reading by the light of a tiny lamp. Still, it was a shame to have to let the place go; it had developed a wonderful charm over the years with its aging shelves and vintage lamps and a well-equipped kitchen, an assortment of crockery and baking equipment hanging from walls tiled in mint green. It would have been nice and welcoming when properly lit and heated. And Judas somewhat regretted that he would never get to inhabit the space it had been in the past.

They spent a good few hours filling three large boxes with Jesus’ sizeable book collection, most of which were second-hand but in good condition. He also had five guitars and was thinking of selling off a few. “I don’t know which one I should give up,” he said, clearly unable to choose between his babies. He picked up a blondwood acoustic guitar and strummed it. “This isn’t the greatest; I bought it for cheap. But it was my first.”

“We can decide later. Or you can leave one or two with Mary.”

His eyes lit up. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“I assume she’s ready to move out. If things come to that.” For all her idealism, the woman struck him as an eminently practical person, more so than the man he had fallen in love with. “Hopefully they won’t add much to her baggage.”

Jesus’ face fell a little at the hard reality of leaving this place, and everything he loved about it, behind. The knowledge that there was no coming back – that it might all be gone by the end of next summer. Much as they tried not to dwell on it, the growing pile of packed and half-packed cartons in every spare corner of Judas’ apartment was a constant reminder of the impermanence of things. As soon as Jesus laid his first bundle of books amidst those labelled boxes, he went quiet and pensive, his arms encircling Judas’ waist in an act of seeking the assurance that some things would stay the same. That come what may, they would weather it together.

Like the progression of an age-old rhythm as natural as breathing, their lips found each other. They had not moved beyond kissing and the exploration of hands over mostly clothed bodies, and while Judas occasionally felt the urge to push things a little further, he didn’t want to force himself past the barrier of hesitation that made itself known each time things progressed beyond a certain level of physicality. The last time Judas had squeezed the curve of the pert bottom he had been longing to get familiar with, Jesus had visibly tensed. And yet he had said nothing about it after, his behaviour as warm and affectionate as ever.

It was a bit of a challenge, he had to admit, reading the subtleties of Jesus’ body language. For all that he was incredibly vocal about his opinions of different breads and the nuances of various literary works, his body was a bit of an enigma; Judas looked forward to unlocking the layers of intimacy until he got to the core and was able at last to know every secret curve and inch and give as much pleasure as he got.

For now, he was content enough to come home to mouth-watering smells in the kitchen and the sight of Jesus in one of his favourite oversized sweaters, the collar habitually slipping down to reveal a bare shoulder he could seldom resist marking with love bites. When he nipped and sucked at that curve of bare flesh, Jesus would spill the most delicious sounds against his neck that truly tested his restraint and made him want to ravish the man there and then.

Once, while he had been leaving his customary trail of stinging kisses on Jesus’ neck and shoulder, his carnal impulses were cut short by the sounds of an altercation coming from the streets. The surrounding area of Jerusalem Square had been quiet for some time now that the rioting had died down, the makeshift barricades the only remaining sign of dissent. So it wasn’t a surprise to see other residents also drawn to their windows and balconies, curious about the source of the increasingly brutal shouts. Judas’ stomach tightened when he saw that one of the people shouting – a scrawny man with a deadly, desperate scowl on his face – was brandishing a knife at a well-dressed person who was either his landlord or one of the building owners, as far as they could discern from the snatches of conversation. The escalating fight involved the ever-rising costs that were squeezing the life out of ‘Salem Square’s denizens and bringing out the worst in people.

“I need to be down there,” Jesus murmured, running for the elevator as Judas pursued him. He hit the lift button, then decided it would take too long and went for the stairs instead. Judas grabbed his arm. “What the hell are you gonna do?”

“I need to break this up.”

“Why, because you started it?”

“I know that man. He’s always been part of all our efforts…and his mother needed taking care of, and…”

“Look, I get all that. But you’re not responsible for everything that’s been happening.” Still, Jesus looked so terribly conflicted that he couldn’t help relenting. “Alright, lets get down there – but no jumping in between those two, okay? We’ll try to talk them down, or something.” Jesus nodded, and they clambered hastily down the stairs, reaching the street in front of their block just as the stand-off was escalating.

“My mother died because of you! She died cold and alone and in the dark because of what you did!” The thin man’s accusing words echoed off the surrounding apartment blocks.

“Please. We can talk this out like reasonable men… Let me compensate you.” The landlord was both trying to inch closer while also keeping a safe distance. “I’ll pay for the funeral expenses –”

“Funeral?? I’ll send _you_ to your funeral!”

Jesus lunged forward at the same time the man with the knife did, Judas holding him back – “It’s too late,” he remembered saying later, though in the moment he registered nothing but the blade sinking into its target and Jesus’ cry of dismay mingling with the panicked exclamations of the onlookers. Some of them had also tried to prevent the attack, but stepped back in pale-faced defeat as the well-dressed man collapsed to the ground, jerked twice and then went still, his eyes staring blankly at the sky.

The attacker himself stumbled away from the murder scene in a haze of shock at what he had done. Jesus reached out in sympathy, a hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away and glared in warning. “It’s best you don’t get involved,” he whispered. “I’m done for. Best leave me be.” He shoved away any further attempt at contact and ran off, not even caring to pick up the bloodied weapon he had dropped. _Let the law come for me,_ said his actions. As if his life had lost all meaning.

A middle-aged woman with a weary face shook her head and turned to go back inside. “Won’t be the first time this kinda thing happens,” she predicted. “Winter’ll come for us all. People get mean when the chips are down.”

The couple trudged back up to their apartment in silence, the incident and the woman’s words sinking in. Less than an hour later, there were police sirens in the air and the sounds of an investigation. Jesus made phone calls to Mary and a few of the other committee members to find out if the perpetrator had been apprehended, as if there was anything to be done about it. By the next morning all that was left of the murder scene was a rust-coloured smear on the concrete below. But the memory of what had happened weighed heavy on all who had witnessed it and in the lowering of voices whenever anyone spoke of it.

Judas was determined to put it behind him and do what he had done to successfully survive other turbulent times in his life. As for Jesus, he threw his concentration into packing and cleaning and making small repairs about the place as if they were staying for another two years. He had also started baking again. Judas came home one evening to the pleasing sight and smell of Jesus rolling out dough for a flatbread and lamb stew simmering away on the stove. Twenty minutes later, the small house was filled with the tantalizing aroma of baking from an oven that, in all its years of occupying Judas’ kitchen, had never been properly utilised until Jesus came into his life. Everything was delicious; even the cheap wine tasted better than it should have. They finished two bottles between them, and the pleasant weight of being filled with good food enveloped Judas in a sense of contentment until Jesus said softly: “I could have done more.”

“You’ve done more than enough. These people would have even less hope without you, and Simon and Mary.”

“Simon got arrested because of me.” There was a tremor in his voice.

“How so? Did you put him up to whatever he did?”

“No…it’s just that…I started this. And – and I should have been there for them, for him, when it happened. To defend him. At the very least, I should be locked up with him.”

“You can’t be everywhere at once. You have your own life, your own struggles, like all of them.” Unable to see him so crestfallen, Judas sidled over to hug him, Jesus’ head falling against his shoulder in a search for assurance. “And what good would being in prison do for anyone, besides?”

“Lot of good I’m doing here.” Jesus wiped his eyes. “Drinking wine and baking bread while others go hungry. I should at least have made extra.”

“So do that. But for now, can you stop beating yourself up?”

Jesus snuggled closer into Judas’ chest. “You’re right. I’m being silly.”

“Damn right you are. Luckily you’re pretty enough to make up for it.”

He laughed softly. Their lips met and the small gaps between them closed as their hands slid over each other. Emboldened by the wine, Judas impulsively rose and pulled Jesus with him, crossing the short distance to the threshold of the bedroom and landing on the bed they shared but had yet to make love in. Later, after it was all over, he would recall the growing signs he had failed to read in the heat of his want. And Jesus, after all, never said a word. Even when his hands had long withdrawn their amorous explorations and his sighs of pleasure had run dry, he showed no resistance. Judas mistook the thrum of anxiety tensing his entire frame for anticipation; he himself was strung tight, fire building inside him, making him painfully hard and longing for that first jolt of bliss. And blissful it was, so much that he didn’t notice how unresponsive Jesus had become until after he had spilt his release inside his beloved and reached between the latter’s thighs. The utter absence of arousal that met him was surprising – and more than a little worrying.

“You alright?” he asked with a frown, his brief glow of euphoria quickly fading, leaving him cold. Jesus nodded, but his small reassuring smile was broken with a wince as he shifted his position. As if he was sore from being taken too quickly. Judas’ heart dropped. “Did I hurt you?” His voice was sharp with concern, with dread. _Why did you let me hurt you?_

“No. It’s fine. It’s not your fault.”

“Then whose is it?”

“Please. Just…forget about it.” Jesus pulled the blanket up around him, as if shielding himself from Judas. He looked small and miserable and it maddened Judas that he might have been the cause of this somehow.

“I need to know if I hurt you,” he said after a stretch of silence. “If I made you…if I forced you to…”

“You didn’t force me into anything.”

“Then why do you act like I did?” The words came out wrong, sounding like an accusation. Jesus averted his gaze, hair dropping down to shield his face that appeared flushed from the effort of holding back tears. Judas took hold of his shoulders; he tensed and pulled away before apologizing. “I’m sorry. Please. Not now. I-I’m not…”

“Not what?”

“Not ready.”

Judas rose to his feet, frustration at Jesus’ refusal to be forthright mingling with anger at himself. “Why won’t you give me a straight answer??”

“Because there isn’t one. I…I made a mistake, and I’m sorry, and I-I promise someday I’ll explain.”

“Someday? When??”

“I don’t know.” His fingers gripped the sheets as if grasping for answers within himself, his voice strung tight in a wordless plea. _Please stop asking._ After standing and staring and waiting for some sign that the wall of silence might come down, Judas finally pulled on his clothes and left the room, not returning for the rest of the night.

Things changed between them after that. Every interaction was either tersely worded or cool and distant, as if they were strangers coexisting in the same space. After three days of this increasingly unbearable tension, Judas found himself at breaking point one particularly quiet afternoon and his hand shot out to encircle Jesus’ wrist as the latter was shelling soft-boiled eggs. “Careful,” Jesus said with a frown, one of the eggs breaking to let loose an orange-yellow trickle.

“Tell me,” Judas implored. “Tell me why you let me do it.”

“I don’t know what you –”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

Jesus’ jaw and hands stiffened, and he went very still for several long seconds before breaking the silence. “You took me in when I had lost everything. Or felt like I had.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but the house and the surrounding neighbourhood was quiet enough that every word was clear.

“So…? What does that even mean?”

“I mean…you took care of me. You still do. And I haven’t repaid anything.” His eyes were fixed on the eggshells, fingers peeling carefully so as not to break the soft whites. “I don’t pay for…for water, or power, even our food. And I thought maybe…it was the least I could do.”

Judas felt a cold hard sensation in his belly, like the forming of an icy fist. “Do you really think so little of me?” he said. His throat felt tight as he spoke.

“What?” Jesus looked up at last with stricken eyes.

“You really think I’d kick you out because you were – I don’t know, taking up space? Or because you lack _value_ as a…a hole to _fuck?”_

He flinched. “Don’t say that.”

“That’s what _you_ said.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Then what _do_ you mean?”

When the wall of silence came down again, Judas slammed his palms down in frustration, causing Jesus to tense and recoil. The delicate eggs were crushed beneath his curled fingers, golden yolks bleeding down the edge of the countertop.

“Does the fact that I love you mean nothing?” Judas choked out.

The dark eyes widened as the lips below them parted speechlessly. A quiet realisation sank in between them. “You didn’t know, did you?” Judas asked. He felt vaguely repulsed at his own admission, at the unveiled surprise that had greeted this baring of his soul: this awful, painful nakedness he had never allowed anyone else to see.

"No. I mean, I _did._ I do. I just..."

 _Just didn't feel the same way._ "Say it," Judas whispered.

“Judas, I…” Jesus was at a loss for words, trying to reach out to him and hesitating, as if to touch him was to get burnt.

“Tell me you don’t feel the same. It’s fine.” It would _never_ be fine. But Judas couldn’t force him to reciprocate the feeling, after all.

“I _do_. I love being with you.”

 _But that’s not the same thing, is it?_ The sliver of uncertainty in his voice hurt more than it should. _Liar._ The more he tried to please, the more it hurt. _It’s_ your _fault, not his, you presumptuous fuck._ As if he had been doing things out of obligation all this while, and not because there had been something special between them that Judas had likely only imagined.

In a haze of numbness, he went to his room and got dressed, then grabbed his jacket and headed out. He heard Jesus calling to him and ignored the pleas. It was for the best, he told himself. Better to turn his back than stay and say something he’d regret. He felt ugly and exposed and utterly foolish. _Misreading gratitude as love. There’s a mistake I’ll never make again._

A bracing wind hit him in the face when he stepped out onto the street. He welcomed the chill, pulling his hood up and walking aimlessly until he found himself at the train station. He was barely aware of swiping his pass at the turnstile and stepping through. The cool automated female voice announcing the arrival of the next train was soothing. Judas stepped into the carriage in front of him as soon as the doors opened, not knowing where he was going, and not particularly caring.


	5. Come home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter arrives. After Jesus leaves and goes silent for a stretch, Judas is determined to find him (with less-than-healthy illegal means if necessary). Simon is an amazing friend, as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Saffiaan for advice on weather-related matters

The memory of that awful moment he had come home to an empty house still haunted him after all this time. The unsettling quiet that told him something had gone terribly wrong. “I know what you’re going to tell me,” Judas said flatly as he downed the last of their long string of happy-hour-rate mojitos. “That I was an idiot and I deserve everything that happened.”

“Actually, I think you were both idiots,” Simon replied. His straw was ribbon-flat and riddled with bite marks; he had a habit of chewing both ice cubes and straws, something Judas would have found irritating under better circumstances. “But you’re also both really good people. And I don’t think you don’t deserve any of this.”

“What would _you_ have done?”

“Seriously? You’re asking someone who’s never been in a relationship for more than two nights and three days. You must be truly desperate, my friend.”

“Shut up.”

“I would, but I don’t think you asked me out just so I can mope in silence. One of us doing that is bad enough.”

He sighed. “Don’t suppose you know where to find him.”

“I did try contacting him. He’s not answering my calls any more than he is yours.” One look at Simon’s face told Judas that his friend’s disappearance bothered him more than he let on. Underneath the callous exterior was a deeply caring person who was unconditional with his time and seemed willing to drop what he was doing at a moment’s notice if he was needed. And while Judas didn’t like to admit it, his need for the man’s company was only growing with each passing day. There was something very comforting about Simon’s ability to ramble on when he himself ran out of words to contribute and made up for it by buying dinner, or in this case a steady flow of drinks. Judas had been almost relieved to see and hear him in the corridors again when the latter had finished serving his jail term a month ago.

He shifted his gaze to the empty glass before him and its remnants of wilted mint leaves, vexed by its failure to dampen the sharpness of his constant ache. It had been nearly three weeks since Jesus had stopped answering his messages. And over three months since he had disappeared.

It took almost no effort to recall the day he had walked out and returned only to immediately regret his rashness. He would only notice the absence of some of Jesus’ belongings later (except for the guitars, which he had left behind). The note pinned to the fridge had stolen his attention first, Jesus’ usually flowing cursive halting and uneven with turmoil. Each word had made his heart sink further and ache deeper.

**_I’m sorry for leaving. But I have to. I can’t subject you to living with someone who led you on._ **

“I assume he wouldn’t tell you anything useful.” Simon licked some of the salt from his margarita glass.

“Only that he was holing up with a friend, and that he’s ‘fine’, which I know he’s not.”

“How _do_ you know?” Simon threw an arm around his shoulders, which he made only a half-hearted attempt to shrug off. “You may not like the brutal truth, but…there’s a possibility he’s managed to get on without you. He might not be happy, exactly, but maybe he’s trying to be.” The hand resting on his left shoulder gave a heartening squeeze. “Maybe it’s time you tried to do the same for yourself.”

**_The truth is that I wasn’t in love with you – not at first. But I am now. And I’m a fool for not realising when it happened._ **

“Maybe.” He raised his hand for another drink before happy hour rates ended. “It shouldn’t be so goddamn complicated.”

“But it is. For him, anyway.” When Judas glared at him for an explanation, he continued: “Look. The Jesus I knew couldn’t rest unless he was helping someone out, or making people’s lives better, somehow or other.” He nodded his thanks at the bartender for his fresh margarita and took a sip. “When someone so used to giving no longer has anything to give – and is reduced to taking – I guess it can feel kinda shitty.”

"You're saying he felt like he owed me." Judas felt a sour taste in his mouth. "That's what he said too...or implied, anyway."

"Owing's just a small part of it. I'm sure he genuinely loved being with you. And he felt safe with you. Wasn't that enough?”

**_Please don’t try to find me. You deserve someone better. I promise that someday you’ll have your answers, if I’m still around to give them._ **

He sighed. “It was better than nothing. Only a fool like me would throw it down the drain.”

Simon shrugged sympathetically in lieu of comforting words. They stared quietly into space for a while until he remarked: “You know, you _might_ be looking for advice in the wrong place. I’ve never been in love, nor have I ever gone looking for it. I really am just in it for the sex.”

“Yeah. I had _much_ better luck in that department.”

“So I’ve heard.” Simon’s utter lack of judgment along with his persistence had led to him worming more out of Judas than the latter had intended to give away, including their first and only disastrous attempt at intercourse. “Please tell me you’ve stopped beating yourself up about it.”

“It’s not about me. It’s about whether he’ll ever trust me to put my hands on him again.”

**_I love you. I’m only sorry I didn’t say it in time._ **

Judas didn’t tell Simon about the note’s contents, and especially not the last two lines that should have made him feel better, but instead made his heart clench up each time he thought about it. (What use were their declarations of love now? Did those words still mean anything?)

“You’re talking like he’s dead or something. You really think it’s too late?”

“I don’t _know._ I don’t know anything, because he won’t TELL ME anything.” Judas slammed his fist into the bar top, causing a few turned heads and an alarmed whisper or two. The bartender, who had seen enough things to know Judas wasn’t posing an immediate danger just yet, merely raised an eyebrow.

“Hey. Look. There’s nothing you can do about it right now, so just…” Simon sighed, having run out of answers himself. “Take it easy, alright?”

“Take it easy??” _The man I love might be in peril, and I’m supposed to shrug and move on?_

“Hey. Come on, let’s step outside. I need to bum a smoke.” Judas didn’t realise his hands were still balled tight enough to whiten his knuckles until he got up. Simon led him outside as they pulled their jackets back on and Judas dug a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, extending it to Simon almost out of habit. The clink of Simon’s Zippo marked the small but comforting ritual.

“I’m worried too, you know. So’s Mary. If either of us hear anything, you’ll be first to know.”

He nodded glumly in appreciation. But the worm that had been chewing at his insides would not give up its gnawing, its call for attention that told him something was not right – and that to sit back and do nothing might be the worst mistake of his life.

~

Grateful as he was to be able to dump his worries onto Simon’s ready ears, Judas still found himself pacing restlessly and smoking more than the half-pack he was trying to restrict himself to per day. _I promise that someday you’ll have your answers, if I’m still around to give them._ Those last words haunted him and made him all the more determined to reject the dreadful alternative that the “if” implied.

“Fuck it,” he declared to the empty house in the dead of night. He had vowed to respect the privacy of the man he loved. But the time had come to break that vow. Within half an hour he had downloaded a variation of the illegal spyware he had last used in his hacker days and proceeded to track down Jesus’ whereabouts using his phone number. The man had not moved around that much, and it didn’t take long to get a definitive answer on his last and current location. “Found you,” he whispered, saving the address to his phone and heading out the door.

The residence pinpointed by the spyware program was a modest semi-detached house in a nice neighbourhood, the sort inhabited by the upwardly mobile on their way to a penthouse loft in a pretentiously named, fully gated neighbourhood. Despite his senses being on full alert, it took a few seconds for Judas to see the ragged figure – half-camouflaged by the dark – knocking with increasing desperation on the gate of the house his tracker had located.

 _Shit._ Judas stopped his car and got out, the cold immediately hitting him even through his thick knee-length jacket. “Jesus??”

Clutching own jacket close, Jesus turned at the sound of his voice, looking shockingly run-down. Even in the dim yellow light of the streetlamps, Judas could see that his eyes were glassy and slightly dazed, the usually soft wavy hair hanging limply against a gaunt face. He forced his anxiety aside to focus on more practical matters at hand. “Are you stranded or something? Forgot your keys?”

Jesus’ eyes flicked to the ground as if in shame. “We got into a fight,” he said after a while. His voice was hollow and brittle. “He locked me out. I probably deserved it.” A smile broke across his face even as his shivering intensified. “It’s good to see you. I missed you.”

“I don’t care how bad the fight was. Does he know it’s under two fucking degrees out?” Judas could see their breaths forming small clouds in the air, and wondered with alarm how long Jesus had been freezing thanks to his absolute asshole of a friend. He reached for the gaunt, huddled figure. “Come on. I’m not about to let you die out here.”

“No…no, it’s fine. I’m sure he’ll relent.”

“Fuck him. He can eat a bag of dicks.” Judas put an arm around him, and he leaned gratefully into the embrace, his violent shivering reminding Judas of the day he had found Jesus wounded and sick in the streets after being mugged. Although he’d been practically glowing with health when compared to his present state.

“Come home with me.”

“I…I can’t…”

“Why not? Look, you can return and pick up your stuff later.”

“I c-can’t just l-leave without a word. That w-would be ungrateful.” He could barely speak without stammering from the passing wind.

“At least come wait in the car. You’re two inches from death out here.” With no strength to resist, Jesus allowed himself to be pulled into the heated comfort of Judas’ aging but well-maintained Mazda. As Judas closed the passenger door, he heard the clank of the gate opening and turned to see a man emerging – tall, lanky in an attractive way, his graceful movements full of confidence. He was calling Jesus’ name. “You can come in now.” When met with no response, he held out his hands in a placating gesture. “Darling, don’t be unreasonable.”

“Are you the one who locked him out?” asked Judas.

“What?” He got a quizzical look in return. “Who are you?”

“Answer the question.”

The man chose to ignore the demand and looked over Judas’ shoulder to where Jesus was huddled in the passenger seat of his car. “Is that him? God, he can be so _difficult.”_ He strode over to knock on the door. “Jesus? Don’t be like this.” Jesus turned to face him with a stricken look, and was fumbling with the door handle when Judas stopped him, throwing himself between the two men.

“Why did you lock him out?”

“First of all, who the heck are you? And why is it any business of yours?”

As Judas was about to shove him away, Jesus opened the door a crack. “Andrew. Please. I’m sorry…”

Judas’ fingers curled into fists at the mention of the name. “You’re Andrew? The ex-band manager?”

“What’s it to you?” Andrew yelped when Judas grabbed his collar and jerked him away from the car.

“You listen to me. You stay far away from him if you know what’s good for you.”

“What the…” Angered but also afraid of the man whose hands were too close to his neck for comfort, he tried appealing to Jesus. “Help me out here, come on!”

“Don’t you talk to him!” Judas hissed.

“Judas, please – don’t hurt him. You’ll get in trouble –”

“Shut the door,” Judas told him. “Do it! Shut the damn door.” Conflicted and no state of mind to object, Jesus obeyed. Judas turned back to Andrew and slammed him against his own gate.

“The last time I saw Jesus, he looked perfectly healthy,” he said through gritted teeth. “So I want to know what the hell you did to him.”

“What I did? I took him in when he had nowhere to go, is what I did. Without me he’d be begging for change or whoring himself on the streets. So how about a little gratitude, huh?”

Judas narrowed his eyes, feeling sick with his overwhelming urge to punch the handsome face bloody. Instead he settled for slamming Andrew against the gate’s wood and steel bars hard enough to bruise before pulling away. The man quivered beneath the fury of his glare. “Stay the fuck away from him,” he warned. Then he got into the car and slammed the gas pedal before Andrew had a chance to give chase. Only after he had put enough distance between them and the neatly landscaped neighbourhood did he slow down and turn to intermittently check on Jesus. The latter had finally stopped shivering and was now slumped against the door, his eyes glazed over and his expression worryingly unfocused, as if he was struggling to hang on to reality.

“Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Do you need to throw up, or something? I can pull over.”

“No, it’s fine.”

 _I love you. I’m only sorry I didn’t say it in time._ Judas wanted to ask if he still meant those words. Except it didn’t seem of such vital importance at the moment. It didn’t even matter, he knew now, if Jesus decided to wake up the next day hating him: Judas would go on loving him, and would go on caring, and nothing would be able to change that.

“Why did you lie to me?” he asked after a while.

“What?”

“You told me you were with a friend, when all the while you were with that shitbag.”

Jesus shifted in his seat, blinking, his eyes briefly filled with a sliver of his old self. “He _was_ a friend to me.”

“Yeah, until he stopped.” Judas shook his head. Tears suddenly burned his eyes as his insides clenched with the guilt he had been pushing away all this while. “I should never have walked away. If I’d known I’d drive you to…if you’d end up with…”

“Don’t. It’s alright. I’m not mad or anything.” Jesus reached out to put a hand on his thigh. It felt like the brush of a dead leaf.

“Why didn’t you go to a _real_ friend?” Judas continued. “Like Simon or Mary?”

“They were both struggling to keep their lights on, same as me. I couldn’t bear to be a burden like that. Especially knowing they wouldn’t refuse.” He pushed up his sleeve to habitually fiddle with leather bracelets that were no longer there, and settled for twisting his fingers together instead. “Besides, Andrew was wonderful to me. Until he realised I…that I couldn’t give him what he needed.”

Judas’ fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “When will you learn that you don’t owe anyone sex?”

There were a few pregnant seconds of silence, broken by the sobs Jesus was trying to swallow and failing to. “Hey. Don’t take that the wrong way. I wasn’t blaming you or anything.”

“No. You’re right. I was so _stupid._ I-I made the same mistake…I never learn…” He curled in on himself and shook with silent sobs in the manner of someone who had learnt to be afraid of crying out loud.

“Look, you made a mistake. But _he’s_ the asshole here. He’s wrong for demanding sex in the first place. You do know that, right?”

He sniffled and wiped his face, the sobs dying down (for now; Judas had no doubt there was more where they came from). “I was still wrong. For leading him on. The way I led you on.”

A chill crept through Judas’ veins. “Did he hit you?”

“Not exactly.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

He shuddered, but refused to elaborate. Instead he said in a small voice: “Andrew wasn’t always an angel, it’s true. But he was good to me. I should be more grateful.”

Judas was shaken. “You can’t mean that. You’re not talking sense.” This was surely not the same man who had led an army of rioters to barricade an entire square and had an opinion about everything from science fiction political commentary to different grades of baguette. They spent the rest of the journey in silence, Jesus falling into a half-stupor, the coat he was wearing too big for his terribly diminished frame. When Judas helped him out of the car, he was worried this fragile creature would break beneath his grip.

They bumped into Mary on the way to Judas’ apartment, and her face filled with dismay. “What happened to you?” Like Judas, she was afraid to hug him too tightly, her arms tentatively encircling him as he clung to her, saying her name and little more. He looked completely drained by the short journey from the car park to the elevator and the length of corridor leading to Judas’ door.

“Do you need help?” she asked him. Sensing it was a veiled request to spend some time with a missing friend she had been worrying about, he shrugged his assent. Besides, he had a question or two he knew only she could answer. Questions concerning one nasty excuse for a human called Andrew.

That night, as the battered remnants of the man he loved slept soundly – safe at last – on his sofa, Mary told him everything she knew.


	6. If it's true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nothing much happens but a series of revealing conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the addition of some new tags, none of which are pretty stuff

“He’ll tell anyone who will listen that he was the driving force behind Gethsemane’s success – that it would’ve been the biggest rock band of its time if not for _internal conflicts_.” It was clear from the start that Mary had no love lost for her ex-manager; but unlike Jesus, she also had no illusions about his redeeming qualities. “The truth is, he was the reason for our breakup. His actions caused a rift between us and –”

She stopped herself and sipped her tea (which Judas had only procured after Jesus started living with him), looking down sadly at the sleeping figure on the sofa. “I should start from the beginning. Or at least, the beginning of our troubles.”

It began, she said, with Andrew’s overtures of affection that the bassist of the band had trouble fending off, especially when the manager had tirelessly pushed them from obscurity to unexpected heights of success. One night, after celebrating their third album going platinum, Jesus had responded more warmly than usual to Andrew’s flirtations, his judgment possibly affected by the copious flow of alcohol.

“One thing led to another. They ended up in bed together, just for one night. But that one time was all it took to damn us.”

“How so?”

“Well, when Andrew started overtly showering him with attention, even going so far as to give him a bigger cut over Thomas – our drummer – despite their equal contributions…it caused tensions, naturally. And naturally, Andrew managed to make Jesus feel like he was the guilty one.” Mary inhaled deeply, trying to calm her anger and rising volume. “I overheard Andrew in a discussion with Thomas once, after which he agreed to revise his contract. The awful insinuations that Jesus should better contain his…promiscuous ways.” Her curling fists mirrored Judas’ own as she recalled the scene. “I marched right in there to correct that, but it was clear Thomas didn’t quite buy it. I guess that was when the cracks started to really show.”

Judas got up from the armchair he had been sprawled in and started pacing. He had to find some way of channelling his ire for this scumbag without breaking everything around him. “And did Jesus himself try to explain what really happened?”

“Not immediately. I think he was ashamed of his ‘moment of weakness’, as he called it. There never seemed to be a right time to bring it up. I tried, a few times, but…” A fierce frown overhung her thunderous eyes. “I might be wrong. But something tells me Andrew had all of this planned all along.”

“It’s stupid, though. From a business standpoint, wouldn’t it have served him to keep Gethsemane going?” He realised it was a trivial question, all things considered, but he needed a distraction from wanting to put his fist through something.

“Oh, he _did_ want to keep the band going – minus its bassist. And it was all because of ‘Songbird’. I don’t know if you’ve heard it…”

“I have. And I know what the lyrics are really about.”

She smiled. “The song was Jesus’ idea. It came about from our growing dissatisfaction with the company exerting too much control over our work, but he was the one who gave us a voice; who made sure they heard us loud and clear. A way to sing what we couldn’t say.”

“And Andrew wasn’t too hot with that.”

“He was bristling mad when he found out, even as he kept up his relentlessly supportive façade. What he wanted was a band without troublemakers. Who would do what they were told.” She picked up the CD lying on Judas’ coffee table and looked wistfully at the cover. The five people on it seemed to come from a more careless, innocent time. “He almost managed to fool us that he’d changed his tune, that he’d see to it we were allowed more freedom and more of a say over our future. But I’ll bet my life he was determined we would never _have_ a future. Not one with Jesus in it, anyway.”

Jesus murmured something in his sleep, the murmurs escalating into whimpers as he tensed in the grip of a nightmare. Judas ceased his pacing immediately and held him until he calmed and fell back into an undisturbed slumber. Mary reached out to stroke the dark hair in a fond gesture, smoothing out some of the tangles it had developed in its neglected state. Usually Judas would have bristled with possessive instinct, but for the moment he actually appreciated her presence, for the sense of normality and clarity it brought. And for the fact that she was clearly one of Jesus’ steadfast friends who had stood by him from the start when everyone else was doubting him, turning away from the very member who had fought hard for their freedom.

“Just before I left, I told them everything – the rest of the band. Whether or not they decided to take my word, I don’t know. It was the least I could do.” She blinked back tears. “I just wish I could do more now.”

“I wish I _had_ done more…or done things differently. Before it was too late.”

“It’s _not_ too late. You’re together now. Away from that despicable person.” She shook her head, her jaw hard with fury. “Jesus was a mess when he left Gethsemane. I thought at least his troubles with our manager were over. That Andrew couldn’t cause any more damage. Didn’t know how wrong I’d be.”

They stayed in their respective spheres of bitter silence for a while before she rose from the edge of the couch. “I’m not doing any more good right now. I’ll come back tomorrow and check on him.” She looked like she would have hugged Judas, except she sensed by now that Judas was not one for hugs, and settled for squeezing his shoulder the way Simon often did. “Let me know if you need anything.”

After she left, Judas carried Jesus to bed and pulled off his jeans so he could sleep more comfortably. The trail of marks along the inside of Jesus’ thighs made his skin crawl. They looked like nothing more than love bites, to be sure, and he supposed Jesus and that scumbag had shared some form of intimacy. How much of it had been consensual was another matter. With some trepidation he pushed up Jesus’ rumpled shirt to check for any other damning signs – bruises, half-healed contusions – but found nothing more than ribs that were alarmingly visible, pushing up against the skin with every breath.

At least Jesus’ slumbering face was at peace. Judas knew that beneath the calm surface was an ocean of turmoil and answers to questions he didn’t want to ask, but would nonetheless.

~

He didn’t get any of those answers for the first few days; Jesus would shrink into himself after being prodded with one too many questions. “I don’t remember much,” he said in a whisper as he cradled his steaming mug of coffee, seeking comfort from its heat. “And what I do remember I can barely trust.”

“Why? What happened that made you…”

Jesus merely shook his head in a silent plea. And Judas had little choice but to leave his hidden traumas undisturbed for now. He was worried that Simon would have far less tact when he dropped by the very next day after Jesus’ return. But Simon turned out to be surprisingly good with such delicate situations, never breaking his gently cheerful front when confronted with the shell of the man he used to know. His banter seemed to do some good; once or twice there was a flicker of a smile in Jesus’ hollow face, which bore some semblance of life by the time his good friend left.

Judas walked out with Simon to the spot near the stairs where residents regularly flouted the ‘no smoking in the corridors’ rule and offered him a cigarette. He pretended not to notice when Simon surreptitiously wiped away a trace of tears from red-rimmed eyes. The man was uncharacteristically silent. Only midway through his cigarette did he finally ask: “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” Judas replied. “And I don’t know if I want to find out." 

He drew some consolation from Jesus’ surprisingly healthy appetite; he savoured every bite of food, whether it was leftovers of last night’s takeaway or whatever Judas’ rudimentary cooking skills put on the table. Within a week, he had regained enough strength that his eyes were alert once more (no longer staring blankly with that worrying glazed look for hours on end) and glimpses of his old self was starting to emerge. Judas commented curiously on this one day as Jesus sat at the kitchen counter peeling potatoes like someone who could do it in his sleep. “Did he starve you or something?”

Jesus’ hands paused before resuming their work, skins coiling off in smooth even strips. “No. There was never any shortage of food. But I didn’t…” He bit his lip as if doubting the truth of his next words. “I just…I couldn’t trust anything I ate or drank.”

Judas’ heart began hammering as if already dreading what he was about to hear. “Why was that?”

“Things were fine at first. He took good care of me, lavished me with attention even. He was about as perfect a partner as one could find. Which made me feel awful, because I was in love with you.” Judas ached at those words, but he said nothing, allowing Jesus to continue.

“I can’t remember the first time it happened. I woke up disoriented, without recollection of having fallen asleep at all. There was a weird taste in my mouth. And then his hands were all over me, and I realised I was naked.” Jesus shuddered; his voice dropped to a whisper. “I asked him what he had done. He told me only that I’d enjoyed it. That I’d begged him for more. And for some reason, I couldn’t bear the thought." His face was flushed as he started trembling. "Even now I can't bear it. If it’s true…if what he said is all true…I just couldn’t –” His shaking fingers slipped, and the knife clattered to the floor. Judas rushed forward when he saw the blood on Jesus’ fingers.

“Come here.” He guided Jesus to the sink, letting water run over the wounds and gently dabbing at them. “Stay there, I’ll grab the antiseptic.”

Jesus calmed a little as he let Judas bandage his two injured fingers, soothed at the touch of Judas’ hands around his. “It happened several more times – I can’t even remember how many. Time stopped making sense; I didn’t know what day it was, what was real and what wasn’t. I stopped eating more than the bare minimal, and I refused to touch anything he poured for me. Even when he called me ungrateful and insisted I was letting paranoia get to my head.” Tears were starting to trickle from his eyes. Judas held him tightly, trying to focus on offering comfort instead of the steadily growing furnace of rage inside him. “I almost believed him, too. When I woke up half-clothed and…and sore, or with bruises I don’t remember being there before, it was easy to let him talk me into believing I had consented to everything. That I was crazy.”

Judas stroked his hair, a gesture he knew Jesus was deeply fond of and found soothing. “I’m glad I found you,” he said, shaking with pain and anger and a fierce protectiveness that left him near breathless. “It turned out to be a good thing, him kicking you out.” _I’d like to kick in his brains, and that would be far too good a death for him._

He recalled what Jesus had said while slumped in the passenger seat of his car. _“Andrew was wonderful to me. Until he realised that I couldn’t give him what he needed.”_ Clearly the man had resorted to taking what he wanted by force.

And clearly he needed to pay for what he had done. Judas didn’t know how yet. He just knew this terrible sub-human creature could not be allowed to live, and possibly inflict such damage on someone else.

“You told me you’d been fighting,” Judas added. “And that was why he’d locked you out.”

"More of a disagreement. Even if he'd say otherwise. I was being difficult, and...well."

"You want to tell me about it?"

As he rose in position and financial means, Andrew had found himself attracting a handful of associates whose inclinations were as unsavoury as his own. The kind who often looked with predatory eyes at Andrew’s live-in partner when they visited, and who were waiting to partake in the sharing of said partner. Andrew had casually mentioned that he was inviting some of these men over for dinner and drinks on their way back from an event that had left Jesus drained and wanting little more than to crawl into bed. “It’ll be fun. I never got to properly introduce you.”

“You did introduce me. To one or two of them.” The brief but uncomfortable encounters stood out from the blur of days melting into each other.

Andrew ignored his statement. “One of them is my old schoolmate. We go way, way back. He’s like a brother to me. I passed him one of our spare keys earlier, so he could let himself in. He’ll have the party warmed up by the time we arrive.”

Jesus tensed up at the thought that one of these loathsome men had free entry into the house. And that he would have to face them at the end of this drive that suddenly felt suffocating. His exhausted mind was suddenly on full alert and reeling with frightening possibilities: that he might find himself passing out and coming to without knowing what had happened, and find himself surrounded by Andrew’s comrades, their too-friendly eyes feasting on him gleefully.

“You didn’t tell me about this gathering.”

“Well, I’m telling you now.”

“Is it alright if I don’t join in?” Jesus asked. “I’ll say hi, of course. And I’ll stay out of your way for the rest of –” He bit back his words when Andrew’s entire demeanour changed.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Andrew’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “How would _you_ like it if I embarrassed you in front of your friends like that?”

“I…I didn’t mean –”

“You won’t even have dinner with me and my best mates? What, you’re going to just sulk in the room the whole time?” He shook his head. “After all I’ve done for you. This is what I get.”

“Andrew, please. I’m sorry.” He reached tentatively for Andrew’s arm, but the latter pulled away. “Do you know how much you’ve hurt me?”

Jesus withdrew and shrank into his seat. “They just make me uncomfortable, is all.”

“They’re perfectly nice people. You’re the one hell-bent on being difficult.”

Jesus didn’t say anything more, but his discomfort only grew as they neared the house. By the time Andrew had parked the car, the discomfort had escalated into outright fear. Perhaps he _was_ being paranoid, gripped by one of his irrational fits. But telling himself that didn’t change the way he felt. He heard the laughing male voices from inside the house that made his skin crawl. “Please don’t make me join them,” he pled when they were at the door.

Andrew stared at him in such a way that made him want to disappear into the ground. “Fine,” the man said softly at last. “If they upset you so much, you don’t have to.”

He exhaled with relief even as guilt filled him. “Thank you.”

“You can stay out here until they leave.”

Jesus’ eyes widened as Andrew gripped his arm and yanked painfully, forcing him down the driveway and back out the gate. “No – please – Andrew, _please_ –” Then he was being shoved past the barrier of the gate that shut in his face with a clang, the cold already biting at his hands as he pounded on the bars and wept and begged in vain.

“I don’t know how long I’d been out there when you found me,” Jesus said softly. “He did it to punish me. To remind me of how dependent I was on him. I had no one to call; I had no phone credit left, and I’d stopped asking Andrew for anything some time ago. Every little favour I asked from him felt like…I don’t know. Like an indignity, somehow. He had a way of making me feel like I was desperate for asking for the smallest things, even without saying anything hurtful. You’re supposed to butter the potatoes _after_ you cut them up, by the way.”

“How large should I cut them?”

Judas was grateful for the utter normalcy of the actions occupying their hands. Even if he did find himself struggling now and then not to slice into his own fingers when he started thrumming with outrage at what his beloved had been subject to at the hands of his abuser. If not for the terrible things Jesus was telling him, the scene would have been an ordinary, charmingly domestic one.

“Quarters should do it. No, not like that…let me show you.” With his uninjured hand, Jesus tilted the potatoes into position. “Down the centre.” His sombre face broke into a smile, and suddenly the kitchen was a little brighter for it.

“Feels like ages since I’ve seen you smile.”

He shook his head, the smile deepening as it warmed his face. “It’s such a little thing. When you asked me how you should cut them.” He tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "Andrew never asked for my opinion on anything. I never realised it till now.”

He looked so absurdly soft and happy and worlds away from the wretched, glassy-eyed mess Judas had pulled from Andrew’s gate. Impulsively, Judas dropped what he was doing and slid his arms around Jesus. Their lips were already brushing when he abruptly pulled back in concern. “Is it too soon?”

“No. Please. I want you to.” Jesus’ arms were encircling him, and then they were kissing deeply, locked in each other’s arms for a long time in an attempt to heal the horrors that had tried to tear them apart.


	7. Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some ghosts don't rest easy. Especially the flesh-and-blood kind.

Spring arrived, and with it a change in fortunes. The new mayor, in an effort to win favour after a precarious victory, had decided to overturn the development project on Jerusalem Square. There was singing and shouting in the streets as the residents celebrated the triumph that had come so unexpectedly yet so sweetly. The battle that they had begun to think was in vain was suddenly flying its victory flag. Simon and a few of his cohorts threw a spontaneous party in the apartment square’s shared courtyard, and everyone turned up to gather around the crackling bonfire and barbeque pits that provided a pleasant warmth against the last remnants of winter air.

Judas watched from a short distance as Jesus found himself surrounded by people once more. His face had filled out, his eyes full of life again as he laughed at some inane remark from James, a merry-faced man who was one of the familiar faces in his circle. To think that he used to watch a scene very much like this one with unfulfilled longing. Now all he felt was an endless well of joy from the knowledge that he would get to go home with this man. When their eyes met, Jesus’ eyes would fill with that special light reserved only for him, and both their faces would grow warm as if they were on their first date.

He savoured the little things he might have taken for granted once, like how Jesus was beginning to openly object to things, where he might once have bit back his words in an attempt to give in – as if he should be grateful to take up this much space. He now occupied that space fully and vibrantly, unafraid to push back if Judas got snappy instead of swallowing his feelings. Judas cherished his small tics and habits he seemed to have lost during his three or so months with Andrew, like the way he fiddled with his leather bracelets when he was nervous or thoughtful. The same bracelets he had given up wearing when that shitbag had expressed a dislike for them. It made Judas enraged to think of it: that constant abuse could stamp out even the littlest (yet most precious) of things. Only a reluctance to get in trouble with the law, and cause Jesus more grief, stopped him from driving straight to that house and gouging out its resident’s eyes.

Two days after the barricade and eviction notices went down, they made love for the first time. Jesus had been engrossed in a TV show wearing nothing but underwear and an oversized t-shirt belonging to Judas. The worn collar had slipped downward to reveal a bare shoulder, and his hair was soft and freshly washed. He looked so ravishable that Judas had pulled him onto his lap to start marking him with kisses, hands wandering tentatively at first, unsure if Jesus would start pulling back. Instead he sighed and arched into Judas’ touch, whatever he was watching forgotten within seconds. They ended up fucking right there on the sofa with Jesus straddling his hips. Judas had thought he would be more hesitant, having not made any move to initiate sex before. But he found Jesus not only eager, but an active participant in seeking greater heights of pleasure. Telling Judas where to put his hands, how to hold him – to be a little rougher, even.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Jesus nodded frantically, panting hard. “Please. I need to feel it.” Judas tightened the grip in his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt. “ _Yes._ Like that.” He made urgent sounds of want when fingers gripped his thighs in such a way that would leave marks for the next two days. Judas pushed their lips together in a bruising kiss that held nothing back, shoving his tongue between those soft lips and far in enough to rob Jesus of breath, only letting him go when he started to struggle. One hand slid down to the swollen, leaking cock against his belly and brought it to release, savouring the spill of hot seed all over his hand. He pushed his fingers into Jesus’ panting mouth; the latter whimpered at the enjoyable intrusion while riding out the last of his orgasm before collapsing into Judas’ waiting arms.

“Never would have pinned you for the type to like it rough,” Judas murmured after his own pounding heart had slowed and a pleasant heaviness settled in his limbs.

“Mmm. I don’t always like it. It depends…” His voice trailed off as he hesitated before adding: “The last time I enjoyed sex was years ago. When I made the mistake of sleeping with my band manager.”

“It wasn’t a –”

“No. It _was_ a mistake. And it _was_ good. Even if it destroyed everything that came after.” He snuggled deeper into Judas’ chest, who responded to his wordless need for comfort by tightening his embrace. “And then later – well, he was the same person to nearly ruin it for me.” There was no bitterness in his voice, only a trace of things that still haunted him, if only in faded whispers. “The last time it happened, I was barely conscious for most of it. I needed to feel something – to make it real, to know that it can be good again. For both of us.”

Judas kissed him, gently this time, and kneaded soothing circles into Jesus’ back and neck with a tenderness that was at odds with his rising rage. “Say the word and I’ll kill him.”

“No. I don’t want his blood on your hands. I don’t want you anywhere near that filth.” Jesus intertwined his fingers with Judas’ own. “Promise me you won’t go looking for him.”

Judas made the promises he needed to hear, and sealed it with a kiss, even as he pondered the dreaded possibility that Andrew might come looking for _them._ That he had yet to give up. The ghost of him had clung on for a good while as they attempted to exorcise it from their lives. A week after he had brought Jesus back home, he had seen a tall figure half-hidden by shadow on his way back from work – one that looked awfully familiar – lurking near their apartment block. He had given chase, but like a bogeyman, it had disappeared before he could get his hands on it. (For all he knew, it might have been someone else. Even if his bristling instincts insisted otherwise.)

Two days later the man had called using a new number. Jesus had thoughtlessly answered, and Judas saw him turn pale and shrink in on himself. He had to restrain himself from snatching the phone from Jesus, instead holding out his hand. “Give me that.” Jesus had complied, and Judas cut short that noxious, polished, perfectly reasonable voice on the other end with a warning to never call again. Even with the threat averted, its impact was not without damage: Jesus’ anxiety had grown steadily until it peaked shortly after dinner, upon which he stumbled into the bathroom and threw up half of what he’d eaten.

Judas was occasionally gripped by fear that the beautiful man now dozing off contentedly against his chest might revert to that shell of a human being who had been manipulated and repeatedly violated until his sense of self had been stripped away. He needed to know the danger was over. That they could start anew without the past following in their wake, the shadow of a bogeyman never far away.

~

With her own unit already up for sale, and Jerusalem Square’s leasehold secured, Mary had decided to move into Jesus’ vacant apartment: something he was immensely glad for. It meant he wouldn’t have to give up everything he loved about it; he knew there were things Mary would not give or sell away, and all that he loved about the place would be there when he chose to visit. He spent most of two days helping her move her stuff in, and they even found a spare half hour to do an impromptu duet with a couple of her guitars. “I’m glad I haven’t gotten rusty,” she said as they finished the last chords of Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks’ _Run To You_. “Haven’t played in a good while.” After leaving Gethsemane, she had gone on to be a producer for several up-and-coming bands at a friend’s record company, as well as a songwriter for an off-Broadway musical. And then the company had shut down, and she – like her former bandmate – had found herself without a steady income source. But it seemed that the changing winds had brought with it a shift in fates and futures.

“You know, Alter Bridge is touring again. My friend who got shut down moved to another place, and her friend there used to work with Myles. She says they’re in need of a guitarist for their current album.” She smiled. “And since Brian is off on a solo project, possibly a bassist for their next tour.”

His eyes lit up. “So we can remove ‘Out-of-work musician’ from our name cards?”

“It would seem so.” She grinned. “It’s an eight-month contract at the least; might run into a year, possibly more, if they prolong the tour.”

Jesus’ smile grew wistful, touched with sadness. “That’s a long time away from –”

“I know.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “But you need to do this. For yourself. I think you know that. And he would understand. He’d be happy for you.”

He nodded. “I once told Judas – the first time we actually talked – that he was lucky to have plans. To have a future. And now I have one too.” He squeezed the hand on his shoulder in appreciation. “We all do.”

“You deserve it.” She blinked away a glimmer in her eyes that might have been tears. “You’ve fought hard for everything you achieved. And I hate that there are always people ready to – to just _take_ all that you worked to build.”

“There will always be terrible people,” he said, somewhat falteringly, knowing she meant more than her words alone expressed.

After a brief silence, she said: “The first few days after you…came back to us. You were like a ghost. There were moments when your eyes would just pass right through me, as if one of us wasn’t there.” She shook her head as if to clear the memory of what she had seen. Except they both knew such memories were the ones that clung the tightest. “You looked like he had…just… _torn out_ everything you were. I’d never been so horrified and so angry in my life.” She suddenly threw her arms around him in a tight, fierce hug that he reciprocated with equal warmth if not quite the same formidable strength.

“It’s all behind us now,” he murmured. “I’m not letting anyone like that into my life again.”

“Call on me or Simon if you need anything. And if your boyfriend isn’t around to beat people up on your behalf.”

He laughed softly. “I promise.”

~

He should have known that such promises were seldom easy to keep.

It was a cool crisp afternoon as he packed the last of the things he and Judas were hauling to their new house at the end of the week. It saddened him a little to leave this place, where he had finally known what it was like to be deeply in love, to want to give himself to someone so completely. But the documents had been signed and the downpayment from the buyers transferred long before the unexpected victory against the developers’ demolition plans. And they could let change make them miserable, or they could embrace it. At least ‘Salem Square would still be here, with all its memories and the people he loved within it.

Jesus was in the midst of labelling the final box when the knock on the door came that he should never have answered.

He opened the door to a face he had dared hope would disappear from his life forever. His heart was suddenly pounding as he pushed the door back shut, only to meet with resistance that sent him stumbling backward before he regained his footing enough to hold the door. For all his lankiness, Andrew had always been surprisingly strong.

The genial smile stayed locked on the handsome face. “Come now, Jesus. Is that any way to treat the man who loves you?”

“You don’t love me. You never did.”

“Then why did I take care of you for months, when you were broke and had nowhere to go?”

“You drugged and raped me. Over and over.” His hands were shaking at the ragged half-formed memories as he tried to keep the door in place.

Andrew sighed. “There we go again. Your old accusations, driven by paranoia. Do you know how much it hurts to be accused of such horrible things? Do you know how many sleepless nights I had after I realised that someone I loved and cared for saw me as nothing but a monster?”

Jesus shook his head frantically, trying to clear it of the insidious, persuasive voice for fear it would exert its influence once more. “What are you doing here? What do you want from me?”

“What do I want?” Andrew’s face softened and shone with something that looked a lot like affection. A lot like love. “I want you back, Jesus.”

He reached out through the gap in the door as Jesus pulled away. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. I still have some of your things. I never did throw them away.” His voice softened. “Come back to me, Jesus. Please.”

“I can’t – No. I won’t. I’m sorry, but it’s over.” Jesus found himself thinking of Judas, and it filled him with courage. “Actually, I take that back. I’m _not_ sorry. And I want you to leave me alone.”

“Alright. Look. Can we just…talk? Just ten minutes. Five. And then I’ll leave.”

“I’ve nothing to say to you.”

“Be reasonable, Jesus –”

“No. I’m done being ‘reasonable.’ I’m with someone else, I’m happy, and I’m done with you.”

Andrew’s beseeching look shifted subtly, revealing something cold and lizard-like beneath. “You’re not really with him, are you? The man who forced you into his car and drove off with you while you weren’t thinking straight?”

“Stop twisting around what happened to suit your purpose.”

“I’m not twisting anything. You’re the one who’s always done that. But I’m not mad at you. Because I love you. More than he ever will.”

“Well, it’s too bad. I love him. And you can’t change that.” He wrested the door back and pushed it shut. “Goodbye, Andrew.”

A flash of something terrible lit up the man’s eyes. Jesus felt the solid wood hit him in the face as he went reeling back, falling painfully onto his elbows. A surge of fear and adrenaline – triggered by the sight of Andrew right in the living room – pushed him back to his feet. He ran to the threshold of the kitchen to grab one of the chairs and held it in front of him. “Don’t come near me.”

“Jesus. Put that away, please.” The flash of cold, cruel anger was gone, and Andrew was holding out his hands in an almost beatific manner.

“Back off, and I will.”

“Jesus –”

“I said back off!”

“You belong with _me._ We belong together.” As if to show he meant no harm, he held up his palms and stayed put where he was. “How much do you _really_ remember? Can you even trust what your mind tells you?”

Jesus said nothing, but a trickle of the old paranoia ( _no, don’t call it that; he insists you were paranoid but you’re not, you_ know _what happened_ ) tried to worm its way in. “You weren’t well,” Andrew continued. “You weren’t eating properly. Insisting that I was poisoning you. Even though we shared almost every meal.” He slowly started moving forward again. “You weren’t in a right state of mind, Jesus. But you’re better now; I can see that. And now we can finally pick up where we left off.”

“And what if I don’t come with you?” Jesus tightened his grip on the chair. “What are you going to do?”

He sighed. “I don’t want to resort to extremes. I trust we can settle this rationally. Without you threatening to hit me over the head.”

“I promise not to hit you if you leave. Just turn around and leave. Please.”

“You won’t even talk to me for three minutes?”

He seemed on the verge of giving up, his body language acquiescent. Jesus decided to try persuading him with compromise. “Not right now. Maybe we can…meet somewhere else. And we’ll talk then.” He had no intention of making good on that appointment, of course. He just needed the man out of his house.

“Alright. Fine.” He smiled in resignation. “Can I just have a goodbye kiss, then? Or a hug. Please. I miss you _so much._ ”

“No.”

“Put down the chair. Don’t you trust me?”

When Jesus stayed silent, his voice took on a slight edge. “Put it down.”

Every instinct in Jesus’ body refused, and just now he was inclined to listen. “I’ll put it down when you back off.”

The sad smile disappeared as Andrew’s gaze turned to ice. “What a shame. I was really hoping we could do this the civilised way.”

He moved suddenly, cobra-like, and Jesus found himself clinging to the metal back rest and careening to the side before Andrew yanked it away violently. He stumbled to the floor. Andrew stood over him menacingly, holding the chair and looking ten feet tall. Then the chair was descending upon him, hitting his arms and back with shocking force. He cried out for help, knowing no one would hear him in time. The metal back came down again, and again, sending shockwaves of pain that shook through muscle and bone.

“Please. _Stop._ I’ll let you talk! _Please.”_ Jesus glanced about frantically for his phone, wondering how he could dial for help without Andrew noticing.

“Oh, we’ll talk, alright. And this time I’ll make sure you listen.” Then Andrew’s arm was around his neck, choking all sound from him, cutting off air and blood till he could no longer move, arms hanging uselessly by his side. As the world went dark, he thought of his beloved. His Judas. _Please don’t hurt him,_ he wanted to beg. But he could no longer form words. He could no longer think. He couldn’t feel anything except the chill of abject fear. Just before everything faded away, he heard an icy whisper in his ear. _“You’re mine now. You always were. And always will be.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be the last chapter, but it looks like the happy ending will be postponed to the next one - whoops.  
> Merry Christmas?


	8. The way the world could be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had it coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my wonderful partner in crime Saffiaan for the suggestion of iron saws

He came to with cramped arms and shoulders from slumping awkwardly on the tiles of the kitchen floor. The whole world was tilted sideways, disorienting him further as he blinked his surroundings back into focus. Only when he struggled to sit upright did he realise his wrists were bound behind his back with duct tape – the same that was smothering his mouth, locking his lips in place.

Stretching out his legs made him realise his pants were missing. _Please. Not again._ And yet his briefs and t-shirt were in place, with none of the awful tell-tale residues he had learnt to dread.

“Your care for your appearance has slipped,” came Andrew’s voice from somewhere to his left. As his eyes followed the man striding across the kitchen, looking so loathsomely at home, he saw his pants hanging on the very chair he had been beaten with. “Shapeless grey sweats, on someone as gorgeous as yourself? You know you deserve better.”

Jesus tensed at the memory of Andrew regulating what he wore, even within the house. _I can wear what I damn well like now,_ he would have said if he’d been able to. Then Andrew’s hand landed on the rack of knives, and his defiance melted away. He stole a look at the clock on the wall: ten minutes to four. Judas was only at work till three on Fridays. But he was picking up groceries after. He wouldn’t be back for maybe another half hour at the earliest. Jesus was torn about how much he actually wanted Judas in the same space as this man. Someone who had proven to be not just ruthless, but violent and unpredictable.

“I apologize for the restraints,” Andrew said as he sharpened one of the knives Jesus had been using just yesterday to slice into a baguette. “Couldn’t have you threatening me with furniture. Or yelling lies for the neighbours to hear.”

Fear fused with outrage at the audacity of such words, from someone who had both lied to him and assaulted him. Jesus saw his phone lying on the kitchen counter, about four feet away from where Andrew stood. There was no chance of him reaching it with his hands bound. And the man was armed.

“When your new boyfriend comes home,” Andrew continued, “you’re going to tell him that you’ve decided to come with me. Or you might find that his position becomes…greatly compromised.” His calculated calm sent ice creeping into Jesus’ veins. “I have friends who inform me that Judas Iscariot has a criminal record. A hacker and a thief. I also have a tipoff that he is a repeat offender.”

Jesus’ eyes widened, as did Andrew’s smile. “So the last part is news to you. Didn’t you ever ask how he found you in the first place?”

Andrew pulled him to his feet, face inches from his, the breath that smelt perpetually of peppermint mouthwash noxiously pervading his senses. “Illegal spyware. That he used to track you down without your consent.” The grip on his arm tightened. “How trustworthy is the man who claims to love you, I wonder? Not to mention he could lose his job for it. Especially if he ends up behind bars again.” Andrew's hands were sliding up his t-shirt, groping him freely. "You come home with me, and I call the hounds off your boyfriend's scent. Understood?"

Jesus tried not to react to the threat, but it was hard not to tremble in fear and revulsion when the peppermint-scented mouth began claiming his neck. Kissing and biting and tainting the intimate stretch of skin where Judas had marked him merely a day ago. He struggled in Andrew’s iron grasp, hating every touch, feeling poisoned by the very warmth of his breath. When a hand slid beneath his briefs, panic and anger fused into one. Something inside him snapped as he kneed Andrew in the crotch. The man howled with pain and let him go. His heart racing, Jesus stumbled toward the counter and turned around to grab his phone with his bound hands, fumbling to unlock it and call for help. Although he didn’t know how effective it would be when he couldn’t speak.

As he was trying to find Simon on his speed dial, he felt Andrew’s hand around his throat. The phone clattered to the floor, sliding hopelessly out of reach. The fingers tightened until he was compelled to beg for mercy in whimpers from behind the tape over his mouth. Then a slap landed across his face, so hard it made his ears ring. He was being thrown against a wall; the back of his head hit the hard surface, turning his vision into bursts of white. Another stinging slap was followed by a kick in the belly that made him fall breathless to the floor.

“When will you learn to show a little gratitude?” Andrew knelt beside him, still wincing a little from the blow to his loins, yanking hard on a handful of Jesus’ hair as if wanting to pour his pain into another. “Why is it that every time I try to reason with you, I’m met with violence? Hmm?” Andrew’s fingers gripped his jaw tightly. “Do you think I _like_ tying you up and hitting you? I’d let you go, you know, if you could behave for a minute.”

Then his head was being slammed into something hard, and everything swam in and out of blackness that threatened to consume him whole. _I can’t…Please. Don’t let him have me..._ His worst fear was to wake up in Andrew’s house, helpless and at his mercy once more.

He wasn’t sure if he blacked out, and for how long. The next sensation he registered was that of being cradled gently, someone’s hand caressing his head. He dared hope for the briefest of moments that it was his beloved – but no, Andrew’s hateful voice was in his ear, speaking tenderly in a mockery of love. He felt the sticky sensation of blood on the side of his forehead. It seemed a grotesque mirror of the time Judas had found him wounded on a sidewalk and saved him from the cold.

“Now, let’s go through what you’re going to say again, shall we?” Andrew was gently cleaning the blood from his head, peeling the tape off his mouth. He heard the sound of more tape being removed and felt his wrists being freed from its hold. “What are you going to tell your boyfriend when you see him?”

“T-that I’m going w-with you.” He had to choke out the words; they felt unnatural on his tongue. The kitchen spun when he tried to stand, and he slumped back into Andrew’s arms as nausea overtook him. Andrew’s fingers caressed his cheek. “Good boy. You know who you belong to, don’t you?”

A trickle of tears escaped him before he could hold them back. “To you.”

“Say it properly.” When he took too long, the hand in his hair turned into a painful grip. He winced. “I b-belong to you.”

_“Louder.”_

More tears that he loathed himself for. _“I belong to you.”_

“Like hell he does.”

Jesus looked up to see Simon standing over them, a switchblade at the ready. “You called?” he said to Jesus before kicking Andrew in the belly. The kitchen knife Andrew had been holding fell to the floor. Then Judas was there, an animal sound of rage emerging from deep inside him as he grabbed Andrew and slammed him against the nearest wall multiple times. When he was done, there was a bloody smear staining the grey-white paint, and Andrew fell unconscious to the floor. His nose looked not just broken, but caved in. Jesus felt a strange bubbling of savage triumph at his good looks being forever ruined.

Then a rush of relief swept over everything else as he slumped bonelessly to the floor and started sobbing uncontrollably. Judas’ arms were around him, holding him together, keeping him safe. “Shhh. It’s OK now. You’re safe.” Judas’ assuring words washing over him only made him sob harder. It seemed an eternity before he could speak again. “He was threatening to...has friends…the authorities…you’re not safe. They’ll take you away. More so now you've attacked him.” He clung on tightly to Judas with all the strength left in him.

“Don’t worry,” Simon said. “He’s not telling anyone anything.” Andrew was slumped on one of the kitchen chairs now, and Simon was busy binding him to it with the same roll of tape he had used on Jesus. “We’re going to have some fun with him. And then we’re gonna kill him.”

Jesus shuddered. “You don’t mean that.”

“I’m not letting him come after you again,” Judas said, rubbing his back and kissing his forehead. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“I don’t want to lose you. I _can’t_ lose you.”

“You won’t. Not if I can help it.”

Jesus looked from him to Simon. “How did you…?”

Simon sat down beside them. “I got your phone call,” he explained. “Heard a scuffle on the other end and some fuckhead being nasty. I guessed you were in some kind of trouble, and I called Judas on my way here – good thing I was nearby, about ten minutes’ drive away.”

Jesus drew a shaky breath as his sobs finally subsided. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Simon smiled grimly. “Well, you can return the favour by not breathing a word to anyone of what I’m about to do.” He flicked his switchblade open, letting the metal catch the light.

“You know, we have a variety of knives you can use,” Judas commented.

“Oh, I’m aware. But this baby feels like an extension of me, know what I mean? And it’s all I need for this particular job.”

When Andrew finally regained consciousness, he found himself in a rather similar situation he had subject Jesus to: tied up and gagged, with his pants removed. He looked around in alarm, going pale when he saw both Judas and Simon staring at him with murder in their eyes.

“You’ve been a very naughty boy, my friend,” said Simon. “Breaking and entering, assault, throwing threats around…not very polite at all. But we’re nice people. So we’re giving you a chance to make up for it.” He held up Andrew’s phone. “First off: you’re going to make some calls to your good friends in high places. Now give me your passcode."

He ripped the tape halfway off Andrew’s mouth. “What are you gonna do if I don’t?”

Simon grinned widely. “Glad you asked.” The tape went back on, and his blade appeared. Seconds later, the stifled screaming began. Jesus watched until he could take no more, burying his face in Judas’ chest. Judas held him tight and stroked his hair and didn’t take his eyes off Andrew the whole time.

Ten minutes later, after Andrew had passed out and Simon had smacked him back to wakefulness, he finally made the phone calls that would keep his associates away. The knife pointed at his jugular ensured he said nothing out of the ordinary. “That wasn’t too hard, was it?” Simon remarked cheerfully after he was done.

“Did he threaten you with anything else?” Judas asked. Jesus shook his head.

“He was going to make me tell you that…that I was going with him, willingly.” He shuddered. “He’ll never let me go. Until he finds a new victim. Not that I want anyone to go through that…”

“Jesus, please.” Andrew’s voice was ragged, genuinely beseeching for once. He was bent over in pain; his bloody midsection bore the grotesque result of Simon’s handiwork. “Don’t say things like that. I still love you. Won’t you tell them that I lo –”

“Enough of your _bullshit.”_ Judas stepped forward suddenly and swung his fist right into Andrew’ face. There was a brutal crack, a fine spray of blood in the air. He grabbed the switchblade Simon had left on the counter and drove it into Andrew’s thigh, eliciting a cry that was cut short by another hit that nearly dislocated his jaw. Then the blade was lifted and came down again, this time burying itself in his crotch. Judas clamped a hand over his face to stifle his long, agonised scream. “Shut up and take it,” Judas said through gritted teeth.

“Guess you won’t be sticking your dick in anyone for a while,” Simon remarked. “If you even have one left.”

Andrew shuddered violently before collapsing in on himself with eyes going blank from shock, a sheen of cold sweat on his face. “What should we do with him?” Simon asked. “I personally don’t feel inclined to let him live.”

He took back his switchblade and wiped the blood off as he sat on the floor beside Jesus, both of them leaning against the wall. “What do you think?” Simon’s voice grew softer. “Should we let him go?”

Jesus didn’t answer, pulling his knees to his chest, trying to still his trembling hands. He felt nauseous and suddenly cold all over. His senses faded momentarily as he felt Judas’ arms lifting him, the ground leaving his feet as he was carried away from the gruesome scene, thankful to not have to look at the twisted bloody figure of his abuser. His appetite for vengeance had died and in its place was a numbness and longing for oblivion, for safety.

The world came back into focus with the warmth of a blanket being pulled around his shoulders. He was enveloped by the steadiness of an armchair, and Judas was with him, and he knew for certain that he didn’t care how the man had found him. Through changing winds and tides, they would always find each other. It was the only way he wished to exist.

Someone was pushing a mug of something hot into his hands. The smell of instant coffee pervaded the air. “Hope you don’t mind me raiding your kitchen,” Simon said. “You look like you could use something hot inside you.”

Jesus accepted the hot beverage gratefully, savouring the bitterness that brought him back to his senses. The heat settled in his belly, warming him from the inside. Perhaps Simon was right about finishing this for good. Perhaps it was the only way they could be free. He remembered what Judas had said on the day they had made love for the first time. _“Say the word and I’ll kill him.”_

“Do you mean that?” he asked, repeating those words. “You would kill him for me?”

Judas’ hand cradled the back of his neck and kissed him. “I would.”

  
  


Simon returned from his trip with three iron saws and several metres of tarpaulin and plastic bags. “Had to buy these at three different hardware stores,” he remarked as he started lining the kitchen floor. “Didn’t want to rouse any suspicion.”

Judas hefted one of the saws. “You sure this can cut through bone?”

“They can cut through metal. Closest I could get.”

Andrew, still taped to the chair, saw the implements being laid out and started quaking, his struggles tempered by the agonising pain of his severe wounds. Simon ripped the tape from his lips. “Want to give begging for your life another shot?”

Andrew inhaled shakily, words tumbling out in a string of desperate stammering. “Y-you don’t want to do this. You don’t want m-my blood on your hands. I’ll leave, for good this time. I promise. Jesus, please.” He fixed his attentions on the least ruthless face before him. “Jesus, _tell them._ They don’t need to resort to this. I’ll leave you in peace and never come back. I promise.”

Jesus folded his arms. “You’ve made promises before. You’re not very good at keeping them.”

“Give me a chance. I helped you, didn’t I? At the very least, I…I sheltered and fed you –”

“And made him feel like he had to spread his legs for you because you did the bare minimum.” Judas’ voice was full of venom as he pointed a knife at Andrew’s neck – the very same one Andrew had sharpened earlier. “You made him beg for scraps. Now you get to do the same.”

His panic intensified. “I was wrong. I admit it. Jesus, please, save me…I realise what I did was wrong. But I loved you. I still do.” He was pleading, on the verge of sobbing. “I love you.”

For a moment, Jesus looked as if he might be moved. He was pale and quiet and his lower lip trembled. Then he shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

He heard the sound of the knife piercing Andrew’s throat, turning his cry of hopelessness into a strangling, choking sound. When he opened his eyes, the man who had haunted his existence for years was dead.

~

An hour or so after dark had fallen, three figures were seen loading what looked like crates packed with plastic-wrapped goods into a car in Jerusalem Square’s parking lot and driving off into the night. The contents of those large plastic bags were set on fire in an open field on the outskirts of a small and largely deserted town.

“I’ve heard how human bodies stink when they burn, but _damn._ ” Simon wrinkled his nose. He turned to Judas, who had an arm around Jesus. “You wanna grab a beer after we’re done?”

“I don’t know. I need to be at work tomorrow, and it’s already eleven.” Judas was vaguely surprised at his own perfectly mundane statement. He felt oddly disconnected from the situation, as if he had not killed a man and then sawed through flesh and tissue and bone to divide the body into transportable sections. They had wrapped the dismembered body in plastic and packed them into crates, all the while trying not to think of how the pieces were once a human being. (“Andrew barely counts as human anyway,” said Simon, a thought that they found at least a little comforting.) Then they had showered and changed, dumping their bloodstained clothes into the laundry machine.

“We should at least stop for doughnuts or something. Seeing as we never had dinner.”

Judas shrugged. “Didn’t have much appetite after all that.” He turned to Jesus. “You hungry?”

“A little.”

“You did lose most of your lunch.” Jesus had stumbled to the bathroom to throw up after attempting to saw through one of Andrew’s legs. He had helped with the cleaning up afterward, even though they insisted he didn’t have to. Right now he looked ready to pass out.

They ended up having burgers of a questionable nature at a roadside stall. The rubbery beef patties, slathered in cheese, were hot and greasy and utterly comforting in their mediocrity. Perhaps in a week or so they might regret what had taken place – regret not letting Andrew go, if only so they could plot his death properly. Perhaps his disappearance would turn into a high-profile case that would come for them eventually.

But right now they were merely tired and relieved and vaguely high on elation from getting away with murder. By the time they got home, they were too exhausted to think too much on their crimes, and fell into the deep dreamless sleep of the vindicated.

The case of the missing band manager made headlines in the industry for a few weeks before fading from the news. He was not, in the end, terribly missed. His friends and associates found other prospering personages to hang on to and circulate at parties with, and he became just another pebble in their stepping stones to success.

Two days later, Judas and Jesus loaded their belongings into the moving van, and drove off to their new place. It would be over a year before Jesus told Mary the full story of how he had been involved in the murder of a man right in Judas’ kitchen. They were relieved for now to leave the apartment behind, to start anew somewhere else. Somewhere untainted by what they had done; what they had had to do. Jerusalem Square’s red brick apartments became a distant edifice in the rear-view mirror, its crumbling pavements and gnarled shady trees whispering their own wordless goodbyes as the lovers passed them by.

The day was crisp and the breeze soft and cool in their hair as they wound down the car windows to enjoy the weather. Spring had arrived, and with it a promise of hope for the way the world could be. A world untethered from the ghosts of the past, where songbirds were free to sing and to fly.


End file.
